Spelt Out in the Stars
by Anna Queen
Summary: COMPLETE FIC! PostS6, Spike is human and has a soul but at a price. Join him on his path of discovery and redemption as he sets out to find The Girl, erased from his memory, who is the only one who can save his life. SB. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

Spelt Out in the Stars 

Chapter 1 

The sky in London is lower than other skies. He had thought that before. That is London. You cannot rise too high above it because you cannot go beyond what you are, and what you are is what London is. A conglomeration of people who are. The great, heavenly arc that transcends other landscapes in London is no more than a backdrop. Elsewhere the face of God is etched in the stars; in London you find it in the man behind the newspaper stall; the girl on the street; the child crying; and the stars hang in the sky like a string of lights on a distant motorway.

He had been here before. And right now that was all he knew.

He watched them all as they walked past him along the half-lit street, a paintbox of low-key neon signs that owed nothing to taste and everything to budget. He felt conspicuous sitting on the bench. It was stupid, because the bench was there for that very purpose, and yet nobody else wanted the time to stop and sit. They all had somewhere to go, someone to be.

"Mind if I join you?"

She was drunk. She was drunk, and he envied her, because to her oblivion was a friend. 

"Seat's free."

To him oblivion was nothing, all he had was nothing, and oblivion, and he didn't know if he cared.

"You surprise me. I had you down for a 'best offer I've had all day' line. Don't know why. Maybe the cheekbones? You have a…a thing about you."

He liked her for noticing that, and for caring who he was.

"A _thing_ about me?" 

"That's it, that's what I was expecting. The can't-touch-me cool. The shrug."

She took out a cigarette and he instinctively reached into his pocket for his lighter.

"You love this, don't you." she slurred, waving the bottle at him.

"I'm more of a bourbon man myself."

"I didn't mean that. This. Here. You. Me."

"_This_ here you me?" He thought she was indicating the parking meter.

She smiled, and shook her head.

"_This. _Being better than me. The gentleman act, the lighter. So you tried it on for size, does it fit?"

"What do you mean?" He asked because he derived some peculiar comfort from her alcohol-saturated words.

"Oh come on. I see you. You're an outlaw, just another low-life like me." 

"I'm not like you."

"Yeah, and you got this wallpapering." She touched her finger lightly against the scar carved through his eyebrow.

"What can I say, I have dangerous taste in wallpaper."

"Damn right you do."

She tipped her head up to the stars and soaked back another throatful of the amber liquid, extending an unsteady hand in his direction.

"I'm Laura."

"They call me Spike."

They? Who were they?

"Spike, you look like a man who could use a drink."

"You think you've got me sussed, don't you?" His voice cracked with dry curiosity.

"I think I know you better than you know yourself right now, at least."

He raised an eyebrow, and the twist in his mouth demanded an explanation.

"You're alone Spike. We're all alone. But you're sitting here talking to me at this moment and you're still alone. It's all you are Spike. What you are in this conversation, what you are in my head."

He noticed it then, in the silvery fair hair that clung to her face, and the violet-laced skin that scarcely covered it, that strange, stinging vulnerability.

"I don't know what's in your head but I'd damn well like to try it" And he took the bottle she held out to him, because she was right, he _was_ alone.

When he drifted back into consciousness he heard the silence and felt the soft weight of her head resting against him. But more than that, he sensed something forbidding, something watching him. There in front of him, half-illuminated by the tired orange glow of a street lamp, stood a faceless figure.

He was aware of something like a bomb ticking against his chest, and in that moment it struck him that his heart was beating.

"Spike." It was not even a voice, just a shadow of something once heard.

"What d'you want?" 

"You think you choose your destiny. You delude yourself. It is spelt out in the stars."

"What is this?"

"This is the very last place you were human."

It should have been a bombshell, but he acknowledged it as inevitable.

"The girl?"

He heard himself ask the question, and it felt like an epiphany. 

"You have one month to find her. One month to find her and convince her that it's worth her while to save your sorry life."

"Save my life?" 

"If you do not succeed she will be lost to you for ever. And you…you will be nothing."

"I'm already nothing."

Spike's words were bitter, but a flickering hope ignited inside him.

"Her name? Why can't I remember her name?"

"Her name, her face, every moment you ever knew her and every place you ever met her has been blanked from your memory."

It swamped over him in a torrent of hopelessness.

"And don't tell me, from now on I will become mute and have to inhabit the body of a toad."

His sarcasm was brushed aside in a gesture of contempt.

"This was your choice. You thought you could take on the stars themselves. Let's see how you play your hand."

And suddenly the figure was gone, yet he felt it all around him, a formless presence that deep in his mind he reached out to grasp, the ghost of a memory that lived and breathed and stirred something within him too precious to name.

And he knew it was true. He knew it because for the first time that night he felt real. He felt alive. He was one of the people that are.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

How long she had lain awake Buffy did not know. Her eyes rested on the dark outline of the coat hanging on her door. As she lay there in the blackness she was all too conscious of the nameless dull ache that would not let her sleep. 

It was emptiness, and the only name she could give it was the one name she dared not.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dawn filtered into the street between the time-drenched buildings. Spike lifted his face towards the morning sunlight and contemplated his fate. The daylight filled him with a fresh determination. As he felt the alien warmth on his skin he almost believed. 

And it was only then that he realised that the thin, fragile hand that had sought its last moment of warmth in his was cold, and the fair head nestled in his lap was drained of its life blood through the tiny double puncture in her neck.

To be continued…


	2. Chapter 2

Spelt Out in the Stars 

Chapter 2

It was somewhere between hostile and dead. The barred window vaunted its battle cry, muted by the cold, stone walls that had long ceased to care. Spike stretched out on the hard, wooden bench and sought the tantalising glimpse of night sky that drifted somewhere above him. The words of the figure in the shadows seeped across his head:

"This was your choice. You thought you could take on the stars themselves."

The day had passed in a frenzy in which time had ceased to mean anything, so quickly could it pass, so suddenly could it stop. "Laura…Laura?" He had smoothed the pale hair back from her ashen face with a gentleness that was as strange to him as it would have been to her, this brittle girl who had never known or asked for a kind word in her life but had burned with a zest for being that touched him even now. Sickened by the cold, stabbing fingers of realisation that clutched at his heart and squeezed until he thought he would choke, he knew only that he cared implicitly that she was gone, and that it was too late.

The rough hands that had grabbed him from behind, pinning back his arms and clamping his hands together, had almost been a relief.

"Sir, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention something you later rely on in court." The chestnut-haired young officer was feisty and fearless, and she uttered the words like a challenge.

"You think _I_ did this?" He spat the question out because it gave him the motivation to lunge forwards out of her grasp, but he had asked himself the same thing a thousand times already.

She reached for him but he swung round and head-butted her hard in the chest. She retaliated immediately, a delicious right hook that caught him full in the face and distorted his view long enough for her to reassert her grip on him. 

"Assaulting a police officer. You just keep it coming, sunshine." she hissed as she bundled him into the van. 

He said nothing, but something akin to a smile had lurked at the back of his eyes, behind the defiance and the pain. Because he knew, for that split second, she had wanted it as much as he did.

And now, lying in the police cell, he throbbed still with adrenalin, as he sensed his time bomb heart ticking away the precious seconds he could ill afford to throw away.

"You have one month to find her. One month to find her and convince her that it's worth her while to save your sorry life … her name, her face, every moment you ever knew her and every place you ever met her has been blanked from your memory."

"Damn it, at least I have a raison d'etre," he concluded, and he laughed. He laughed because the world was against him, and the one friend he had had been taken from him, and his only hope was a nameless, faceless girl who could be anywhere in the world, and in some strange way he revelled in it, because as much as he fought to live he lived to fight.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Saving the world, albeit necessary, is not as conducive as it might be to the art of conversation. Small talk can lose its relevance in the light of a near-miss apocalypse. Dawn watched in increasing frustration as Buffy turned over the pages of a magazine with blank regularity, and waited for the half-formed question she had seen Buffy almost ask, and check herself from asking, more times than she could count. She knew it because the same question hovered at the back of her mind, if only she could venture it. But the silence was not hers to break.

"Dawn, do you miss him?"

There, it was out. Dawn smiled, and observed, as if she could not resist it, 

"You could have said, do you miss _Spike_, and you would have taken the only-question-in-the-world edge off it." 

"Oh come on, you were thinking it too. Besides, there are issues at stake here I need to consider. Spike comes back chipless and I have to start watching my neck."

"_Now _you figure that one out." Dawn was not going to pass up that opportunity.

"What's that supposed to mean? Second thoughts, _don't_ answer that." 

Dawn answered all the same. "Well, it's not like your neck wasn't on offer before, is it?" She hurriedly deflected the glare Buffy shot in her direction, "I mean, the chip didn't work on you. So what does it matter?"

"It matters, Dawn. You know that. Big Bad Spike is Big Problem Sunnydale." 

Buffy sighed, and, in something of a whimsical vein, asked, "He would show up here if he was back, wouldn't here? I mean, whether he wants to bite me or...or…"

"Bite you?" supplied Dawn helpfully.

"Thank you Dawn. Remind me _not_ to have you write my biography, should I ever become bookworthy. I see you will represent me in a sordid light."

Buffy paused, and then brightened as if suddenly struck by a new idea. 

"Maybe we should go and check up on Clem. After all, he is our new man inside on the demon world. Though I'm not convinced that Clem hangs out with the kind of demons I'm interested in."

"He hung out with Spike."

"Ye..s. Again, thank you Dawn. Look, Clem would know if...if...- I think we should go. It's my duty as the Slayer – right?"

* * * * * * * * * *

Spike recognised one of the voices that woke him the following morning, as that of the superior police officer who had overseen the exhaustive mill of questioning he had been put through the previous day, but the other voice, clear, bright and female, was unfamiliar to him.

"Post-traumatic stress. The man has witnessed a murder, for crying out loud. Wouldn't you want to blank that from your memory?"

"Oh, it's convenient, I'll give you that." The man's voice was languid with cynicism.

"Anyway, you can't keep him any longer, not without charging him. And you have nothing to go on. You know that, and I know that. The boy is mine."

The reply was inaudible, but her statement was confirmed as the door of Spike's cell swung open, to reveal a tall, handsome woman of about forty, marked by a calculated elegance that suggested something more beneath the smooth exterior. She held out her hand towards him.

"Spike, isn't it? Karen Newport QC."

He clasped her hand in a brief, suspicious acknowledgment of her greeting. She smiled.

"You'll think me very presumptuous. I understand you are suffering from amnesia and have little recollection of your present circumstances. I have more than a passing interest in this case, and I believe we might be able to help each other. I may be able to shed some light on what happened yesterday. In return for your co-operation, I can provide board and lodging until you are able to locate family or friends. Superintendent McKay here will vouch for my integrity."

The superintendent nodded stiffly, curling his lip slightly as Spike consented somewhat detachedly to her scheme. As they headed towards the exit the superintendent clipped in his parting shot: 

"You're a fool, Newport. Why don't you leave the detective work to those of us who know what we're doing?"

"And why don't youleave judgement to those in a position to mete it out?" she retorted, with that same studied composure Spike had noticed earlier. She turned back to Spike.

"We'll take the cab. Here – "

She motioned him towards a nearby taxi, and gave her instructions to the driver. Spike shifted guardedly across the leather seat, and turned to her with a face that threatened to give nothing away.

"So go on, what's your game?"

She smiled. "It's a bit late to ask that. You're here now."

Spike reached into his pocket for a cigarette. "What do you want from me?"

"Like I said, I have my reasons for pursuing this case. Whatever you might believe, you witnessed what happened. Who knows what might prompt your memory? Besides, you have a…a thing about you."

He leered a little. "I get that a lot."

They pulled up in front of a smart London apartment and Spike followed her up a newly-painted staircase to a panelled front door. As she reached into her bag for the key he suddenly slammed his hand against the door and asked the question that was simmering on his mind.

"What makes you so sure I didn't do it?"

She paused for a moment, and let out a long breath as she turned to face him.

"Alright, here's the deal. Spike, do you believe in vampires?" 

"Why?" He was caught on the defensive.

"That girl was killed by a vampire. You're not a vampire." She placed her hands on his shoulders and spun him round to face the mirror in the hallway. "Look – reflection."

Spike smirked as he leaned in to command a closer view. "Good looking bloke – have I put on _weight_?" but the colour had drained from his face.

"Been a while since you last looked in the mirror, has it?"

"Feels like it."

She showed him into her tastefully furnished home. 

"This is my husband, Martin." The thin, grey man with a kind face welcomed Spike with a heartfelt warmth that he had not expected.

"And here is my daughter, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth was a bewitching, elfin creature who graced her seven years with a rare unworldliness that veiled an impish charm. She had her mother's beautiful dark skin and hair, a striking background to her father's extraordinary eyes, a sparkling green-brown, like sunlight in a puddle after a shower of rain. She stretched out her hand towards him.

"Elizabeth lost her sight when she was six months old," Karen explained, "She sees with her hands. If you don't mind, it would help her if she could touch you."

Spike knelt down and felt the butterfly fingers trace the outline of his face.

"What's your name?" she asked him.

"Spike," he answered, and as he did so he took hold of her hand in his own. But in doing so he lifted it from his face with an urgency that suggested she had awakened some terrible memory, Karen decided. 

* * * * * * * * * * *

Buffy paused at the door of the crypt. "We should knock. We don't want to initiate another popcorn shower." 

She handed Dawn the long, leather coat she had been holding and knocked twice on the door.

Dawn smiled. "Poor Spike. No-one ever took the trouble to knock when he was here. Can you imagine knocking for Spike?"

"Yeah, or slamming Clem up against a wall…_don't_ think it!" Buffy realised her mistake instantly. She smiled, as she took the coat back from Dawn. "Those were the days."

"Ladies," Clem's genial smile appeared in the doorway, "Good to see you. Come on in." He turned to Dawn. "I fixed the video. You'll have to come round some time and catch the new, real-time _Wedding Planner_. Though I'm not sure that I didn't prefer the jumpy version." He motioned them both inside. "You ladies make yourselves at home."

"Clem. Thank you." Buffy looked around the room with interest.

"I moved things round a bit – look, I have a sitting area for guests, just in case. Take a seat, do. How do you like the rug?"

"I love the rug." Dawn answered with a wide smile, because she saw with no small degree of curiosity that Buffy had been rendered speechless.

"I found it over there, in the corner. Seemed a shame to leave it there. I thought it could be put to better use."

"I think you're probably right," Buffy affirmed, her voice betraying something that was either amusement or embarrassment, Dawn could not tell which.

Buffy sat down and turned towards Clem. "Em…I brought Spike's coat…he left it when…em…he…he left in a hurry… but then of course you knew that…"

Clem nodded reassuringly, and Buffy continued. "Anyway, I thought he might want it when…em…when he – Clem have you heard anything from him?"

The question came out in a rush. 

Clem shook his head. "Whatever it is he's up to he's keeping it pretty quiet."

Buffy smiled wryly. "Sounds like the Spike we all know and love." She shook her head and laughed, "Well, heaven help us all when we do find out … or heaven help _him_, at least." She said it as a threat, but heard it as a benediction.

She paused for a moment, and then, as if resolved to do it, asked, "Clem, did he…did he say anything about the chip?"

"Quite a lot, yes." Clem replied rather awkwardly.

"He was gonna get it out, right?" 

Clem nodded and Buffy, chewing her lip, stared thoughtfully at the floor. Clem hastily changed the subject.

"Can I get you ladies anything to drink?" he asked with a gallantry that belied his appearance.

Buffy smiled. "Maybe another time. We should get going. Thank you, Clem."

"Yes, thank you" Dawn echoed warmly as she got to her feet.

"Not at all. I appreciate the company. Yours especially. Come again."

Clem was about to settle himself back down in his chair, when he remembered something, and called out behind them, "Oh…em…the coat. You were gonna leave the coat…"

But they were out of earshot, and his words fell on deaf ears.

* * * * * * * * * * * 

"You're an outlaw, just another low-life like me." The girl's words were still ringing in his ears as Spike surveyed his new surroundings: the rich, cream paint; the bed swathed in fresh blue cotton; the sun-washed seascape that hung on the wall. He didn't belong here. This pristine world where people lived cocooned in warmth and family; those unseeing green eyes, blinded by innocence, that had looked at him and seen only good; the fairy hands that had touched his face and known only a friend.

And as he sat there he knew two things clearer than the day itself. The first was this: he had not killed the girl.

And the second was this: he had not killed the girl, _this_ time.

"Can I get you anything before I turn in?" It was Karen, peering round the doorway.

He shook his head. "No, I'm fine, thank you."

"Look, Spike, I don't want to give you nightmares, but you might want to take a look at this. You never know, it might jog your memory."

She handed him a leather-bound book entitled '_The Vampire in London – a comprehensive history.'_

"Oh, one more thing," she paused as she turned to leave the room, "I looked up an old friend on the Internet. I think he may be able to help us."

"Who is he?" Spike asked the question with no real interest in the answer. 

"Someone who knows a thing or two about vampires. His name is Rupert Giles".

To be continued…


	3. Chapter 3

Just a very quick note before I continue, wanted to say a BIG thank you to everyone that has read this and been lovely enough to get back to me about it, am hugely grateful, and since you have been kind enough to do so thought it was only courteous to reply. Was interested by the over-poetic London remark, since poetry is not about the way things are but the way we perceive them. I don't live in London myself but most of my friends do, so I spend a lot of my time there and this London is _my_ London: a little bit of how London has sometimes made me feel. And you do sort of prove my point, that people who live in London won't allow it to be anything but what they believe it to be. But you're absolutely right – this is essentially a fantasy London, in a story that is essentially a fairy tale! And the comment about Buffy in the last chapter was spot on – I was trying so hard not to turn Spike into Angel that everyone else got neglected slightly! Also, I do apologise if all has been a bit confusing so far. It's a reflection of the characters' states of minds, especially Spike, but should all start to become clearer soon! Anyway, thank you again, your help is so much appreciated and now on with the story… Spelt Out in the Stars 

Chapter 3

The room was dark, all dark, beyond the one faint shaft of light, and Dawn, cloaked as she was by the heavy leather curtain hanging over her, felt a prickle of danger as she fumbled in the shadows. Down the hallway echoed the scarcest thud, the quiet footfall of someone or something advancing in the gloom. The door rocked open and Dawn froze, engulfed in the harsh white glare that flooded the room.

"Dawn. And my shoes. In the same sentence? Please, no." The outline Buffy cut in the doorway was not a sympathetic one. Dawn clung in desperation to the mantra of a shoe stealer: the best form of defence is attack.

"You still have Spike's coat."

Buffy didn't flinch. 

"You still have thirty seconds to put my shoes back before I remove them by Slayer force "

"Are you allowed to do that?"

"I don't know. It's not often that I meet a vampire wearing my shoes"

Fortunately for Dawn, the shoe thief code embraces a many-pronged survival strategy. Lesson the second: if in doubt, change the subject.

"Look what I found."

"Not looking. Looking at shoes. Waiting for shoes to not be on Dawn's feet."

"Do you think this was Mom's?" Dawn held up the figurine and watched with curiosity as for a brief moment Buffy seemed almost caught off her guard.

"I…em…no. That's…em…mine. I…I bought it at the wedding shop. Long story. Long and oh – not that memorable. There, already forgotten."

Dawn was not so easily side-tracked. "So tell."

Buffy smiled and shook her head as she took the blond-haired pair and settled them firmly down on the dresser. "Dawnie, there are some tales better left untold."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Spike read deep into the night, absorbed by the dark, tangled history spelt out before him. He felt himself almost overwhelmed by the extraordinary, impending knowledge that he had read it somewhere, somewhen before, this tale of Angelus, the sadistic monster, of Drusilla, the grateful victim he had tortured to sweet madness, and of… but the page had been torn across, leaving only the odd fragment of a half-sentence remaining. But if the meaning of the text was lost to him, the meaning of the ugly brown stain that branded the tattered edge of the missing page was all too apparent. He knew what it was. He knew it like he knew that he was sitting there, living and breathing. Blood.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

"You want me and Dawn to come back to England with you? What did you say you did with the real Giles again? " Buffy teased.

Giles smiled. "Really, Buffy, I know how hard you've been working. One might say too hard. You need a break. You and Dawn." He paused. "Besides, it looks like my friend might need your help."

"Oh, _that_ kind of a break. You know, I liked the new Giles better after all. Go get him back."

"Buffy, I'm serious," Giles persisted. "Xander and Willow are quite capable of holding the fort here. And I'm sure Anya can be persuaded…not to mention your friend Clem."

Xander bristled, as if stung to petulance by something Giles had said. "Since when has Clem been on board?"

"Buffy went to visit him yesterday, " Giles explained.

Xander turned to Buffy accusingly. "What is it with you and the demonkind?"

Buffy rounded on Xander in a tone that was suddenly acid. "Two words, Xander. Pot, kettle."

There was an angry silence for a moment, before Buffy continued in a more conciliatory tone, "Look, I'm sorry, but Giles, this is my destiny. I can't run away from it. I'm needed here. Hey, who died and made me Watcher?"

Giles smiled. "Buffy, Xander and Willow did manage without you when you were…em…"

"Let me guess. Four-letter word. Starts with a 'd'? Maybe an 'e' and an 'a' in there somewhere? Rhymes with…yeah right they did. And that's why Sunnydale was overrun with demon bikers when I came back."

"Deah-right-they-did-and-that's-why-sunnydale-was-overrun-with-demon-bikers-when-I-came-back? I may be but a carpenter but that is _so_ more than four letters." Xander supplied helpfully.

"We had Spike before," Willow said, flatly, and then, in the ghost of a whisper, "and Tara."

Buffy motioned Giles to the door of the magic shop. "A word with my watcher. Outside."

Buffy sighed. "Giles, Willow is in no fit state to be left alone. You can see that. We both can."

Giles spoke firmly. "You're the Slayer, not the local social worker."

"Exactly. _I'm _the Slayer. _I'm _supposed to be the one that does the slaying."

"And just now Sunnydale is not the place that most needs the Slayer," Giles asserted.

"And how do you know this isn't some kind of trap and your friend Ms Newport isn't part of a conspiracy to get the Slayer out of Sunnydale in time for Apocalypse Now?" Buffy demanded.

"Buffy, give me some credit. Anyone would think I was utterly naïve when it comes to choosing friends."

"Giles, two words. Ethan. Rayne."

"Do I get two words too?" Willow had appeared, un-noticed to either of them, in the doorway.

Buffy smiled and wrapped her arms tightly around her friend. "Will. Love you."

"Wait, I see what you're doing. You think if you keep me all loved up I'm not going to do the whole ending the world thing."

"Oh, sneaky Will. It's working, right?"

Willow grinned and raised two clawed hands in a mock witch snarl as she turned to leave. But her dark eyes were clouded with unspoken pain and Buffy's heart was heavy as she turned back to her watcher.

"I can't leave her, Giles."

"Willow is in good hands, Buffy. Good-hearted hands, anyway."

"I know. But if anything was to happen…"

Giles removed his glasses and started polishing them vigorously with his handkerchief. "It won't. I…em…took the liberty of asking Angel to come down here and keep an eye on things while we're gone."

Buffy's eyes widened in disbelief. 

"You – did – _what_?"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Spike felt uncomfortable, sitting there at the breakfast table, wearing Martin's clothes and watching Elizabeth walk the cornflakes packet monster along the back of her chair.

"The book belonged to my father. I've no idea where it came from." Karen explained, "Do you think it might be important?" 

Important? I have one month, one bloody month, and I don't know whether that makes everything important or nothing important, Spike wanted to shout, but he only nodded, and Karen continued.

"We moved to England when I was ten years old. My father was a journalist. He…he was a risk-taker, Spike. He would do anything for a good story."

"Hence the moving to England," Spike remarked drily.

"He was killed shortly before my nineteenth birthday."

"I'm sorry." Spike didn't know what else to say.

"Like I said, he would do anything for a good story."

An uncomfortable silence fell, marked by the occasional roar from the cornflake packet monster.

"Listen," Karen said eventually, "I have an idea. I know where we could find a complete copy of the book. It's worth a try."

Myriad beams of sunlight poured through the glass ceiling of the British Museum, and Spike felt almost relieved to withdraw to the more subdued tones of the library. He waited as Karen went over to the desk and returned, eventually, with a dust-laden copy of '_The Vampire in London – a comprehensive history' by Daniel Knight_. Spike turned to the missing page, his heart thrashing a drum roll of anticipation. And the name he read seemed so familiar to him it could have been his own.

"Any luck?" Karen asked as they returned the book at the desk.

Spike shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. Does William the Bloody mean anything to you?"

Karen shook her head.

Spike turned to the man at the desk. "Do you know anything about this Daniel Knight? Bloke who wrote the book?" He hardly knew why he asked the question.

The curator turned to the computer in front of him. "I can…here…ah…yes. Daniel Knight was a pen name, it seems. The author's real name was John Gardener."

Karen gripped Spike's arm so hard his hand turned white. "John Gardener was my father."

"Your father wrote this book?" Spike was puzzled.

"Spike, I should have known. Why didn't I see this?"

"Known what?"

"Spike, I told you my father was killed," Karen breathed, "What I didn't tell you was that I have always believed my father was killed by a vampire."

Sleep was not something Spike entertained much hope of that night. He lay awake, his head throbbing with a melee of thoughts: of vampires, and William the Bloody, of Karen's murdered father, and the girl, this girl he had to find before it was all too late. Suddenly he noticed something that stilled the frenzy in his head like a blanket of ice. There, in the doorway of his room, something glowed, green and eerie; something slight, and solid; something that seemed to pierce his very soul; something he knew he had seen before. 

"Elizabeth?" he whispered, getting up and walking towards her. But she turned round and headed purposefully down the hall. He followed, and watched in disbelief as she opened the front door of the flat and walked, steadily, down the stairs towards the outside door. 

"Wait," he called softly, but she continued onwards, resolute, into the starlit street. Spike ran after her, grabbing her wrist to try and stop her, but she seemed driven by some force that he could not vanquish, and it was all he could do to keep his grip on her as she walked on. They turned into a dark alley-way, and he sensed that they were not alone.

"Kid's got company." The voice grated against the night air.

"Well, look who it is." One of the creatures lurking in the shadows stepped forward and wrapped his gaunt fingers around Elizabeth's wrist. "Come along for the ride?"

Spike replied in a voice that was dangerously quiet. "No-one's going anywhere. Not me, not the Little Bit."

The vampire's mouth curved around his savage teeth in a sinister smile. "Think you can take us all? That's – " but he tailed off suddenly, releasing his grip on Elizabeth as he turned and bolted into the night. Spike spun round in the darkness to see what it was that had so disturbed the vampire. He caught a glint of golden hair, and for a moment he thought of Laura. But this was a stranger.

"Give me the girl." 

Her voice was hard, and he thrilled to the challenge.

"Nice try, pet."

She stood, riveted to the spot, as if paralysed for one moment by his words, and as he moved out from the shadows she choked out the question in a stab of contempt.

"Spike?"

To be continued…


	4. Chapter 4

Can't thank you enough for all your reviews so far – you are all shining stars and it means so much to me that you took the time to let me know what you think! Spelt Out in the Stars 

Chapter 4

For one moment, one electric moment, they stood, and if the world continued spinning on its axis it was more than the natural order of things demanded. Every atom of space between them was charged with an energy that the stars themselves could not deny.

And then her hands were at his throat, her eyes locked into his. "How could you?" Her voice was almost mechanical, but she was trembling with excitement. "So come on, Spike, your ending or mine?" He felt her fist bruise his face, lightly. "Come on, I'm offering you one last shred of dignity here. You in?"

Part of him wanted to resist, to be better than her. But his whole being was racked with longing for the thrill of combat. He told himself he did it for Elizabeth, because she needed him to protect her. But when he did it, he did it for one reason and one reason only. Because not doing it was killing him. 

He smashed his fist into her face, sending her staggering backward. "Is this the way you want it, love?"

She flung him a look of scorn as she regained her balance. "I don't want anything from you. Except this."

He leered at her as he rocked back from the blow. "This good for you, is it…too?"

"No." She leaned in so close they were fighting for the same breath. "Better." And she slammed him back into the wall. 

Spike laughed. She struck him across the mouth, as she hissed, "You were right. This is all I want. This is all I've ever wanted."

He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his sleeve as he raised his arm to block her punch, lunging his free hand towards her stomach. But she anticipated him and caught his hand in her own, twisting his arm round with a grip so tight he thought the both of their fingers must break.

"And you know what?" she breathed, "The time has come. I'm gonna have myself that real…good…day." She pressed her forearm across his throat, and the trickle of blood running down his face traced the curve of her elbow. "I'm just glad you could make it."

She jabbed her knee towards his lower abdomen, but he intercepted, cupping the underside of her knee with his free hand and, in an effort that he felt must wrench the very soul from his body, threw her to the ground. It was an ugly fall and the pain that burned on her face cut him deeper than any blow from her hand could. But as the doubt flickered across his face she snapped into action like a snare, trapping his legs between her own and bringing him crashing down beside her. 

And as they lay, side-by-side, aching, on the tarmac she whispered in his ear, "Thought this was your game? Works for me too."

The blood in his head raced, and he half-turned towards her, but she froze him with a glance of pure hostility. "Touch me again and I'll kill you." She propped herself up on her elbows. "Oh wait. I was going to do that anyway."

And she flung herself towards him, her eyes blazing with a fire that was all rage, a consuming fervour that besought him to meet her in this stark, primitive struggle. She spat out her words between breaths. "You think I'm no better than you. You're wrong, Spike. Because when this is over I'm gonna get up and walk away."

It was short, and bitterly sweet, and before he knew it he found himself pinned to the ground, her knees clamping his arms to his sides and something long and sharp and deadly pointing towards his heart.

"Good fight. I should have done this years ago. Wish I had." The anger was gone, the coldness of her conviction overpowering. She leaned in towards him. "What, you're just gonna sit there and take it, now, Spike?"

She was looking at him with something that was almost compassion, a scarred, ugly tenderness that he felt more acutely than the point digging into his chest.

"You've been everything to me, Spike. My arch-nemesis. The thorn in my side. My faithful punch bag. God, even my right-hand man." The shadow of a remembered smile passed over her face, and her words grazed his skin like a caress. "I owe that to you."

Her eyes narrowed, and when she spoke again her voice was thin and hard and intimate, like barbed wire tearing into his flesh. "Tell me you'll miss me." 

He met her gaze with bright blue defiance. "I don't know who you are, bitch, but I'm guessing, where I'm going - they make them _all _like you." 

It was the tiniest hesitation, but it was enough. She was stung, and in that moment he pulled away from her and ran for his life. He ran until his legs gave way beneath him. And then he realised. He had to find Elizabeth.

Spike was as haggard and grey as the cloud-shrouded dawn by the time he stumbled, exhausted, back to the flat. 

"Oh my god, Spike. Is Elizabeth with you?" Karen greeted him with a sickening urgency that did nothing to temper his frustration. He shook his head dejectedly.

"You're hurt? What happened?" Her voice was wrought with barely-suppressed panic.

"I went after her. She was - "

"Sleepwalking? She's done it before." Karen clutched at the one straw of normality, but there was a desperate edge to her words.

Spike answered with a coolness that he did not feel, "Yeah, well. She heads off, I follow. And there they were, lumpy buggers – "

"Vampires?" Amidst all the rising fear and confusion the one word rang out like a bullet in a snowstorm.

"Maybe. They took off. Didn't stay for the picture shoot."

"Elizabeth?" Karen's voice was hollow, but she could not but frame the question.

"No, kid was OK. They…they didn't get her. And then the little blonde one turns up."

"What, another vampire?" 

Spike shrugged, dismissing the encounter with a nonchalance that was curiously at odds with the shallowness of his breathing. "I don't know. I don't know what she was. Packs a punch and a half though."

"And she has Elizabeth?" gasped Karen, her voice giving way to a croak.

"No, no." Spike shook his head warmly, indicating his battered face. "I didn't get these for nothing. But by the time I'd seen off Goldilocks your little bit's gone. Thought she must've got scared, run for it. I just hoped she'd somehow find her way back here." The tiniest note of despair had crept into his voice.

Martin stepped forward to squeeze Karen's hand. "And she will, we'll get her back. We did last time."

Spike raised an eyebrow in question and Karen explained.

"It's not the first time this has happened. She went missing once before. But we put an extra bolt right at the top of the front door after that. There's no way she could have got out."

"And you're sure you bolted it last night?" Spike asked.

It was then that she dropped the bombshell. 

"The door was still bolted when we got up this morning, Spike."

It was impossible. It was impossible that he and Elizabeth could have walked through a bolted door. It was impossible that so much of who he was could be erased, just like that, from his memory. It was impossible that the one person in Creation who could save his life could be the very same that had risked her own to take it, and yet still his heart thudded so hard against his chest that he almost believed it might break.

At her request, Spike took Karen to where he had last seen Elizabeth. In daylight it was hardly recognisable as the same place, but just standing there again he felt his skin burn, and every bruise on his body sang with the memory of it. As he and Karen walked back to the flat she turned to him suddenly, clearly agitated, but determined to remain focused. 

"Spike, I need you to do something for me."

"Of course."

She took a deep breath. "When my father died, they spent a lot of time investigating his journals. He used to write down notes on the different stories he was covering, all in his very own customised shorthand. Well, that was his excuse for it." 

Spike smiled. "So handwriting wasn't his thing. Goes with the territory, doesn't it?"

She nodded, and continued in the same distracted tone. "I suppose so. Anyway, they followed up everything they could – it wasn't easy, all initials and journalist code – and ultimately they didn't get anywhere. So in the end we just packed it all in." She stopped for a moment, her glance shifting restlessly about them, as the faint crash of a cat knocking over a bottle echoed down a nearby alley-way. Then she set her face resolutely and resumed her story. "When Martin and I were first married we used to live with his sister in Whitby – you know, seaside resort, legendary home of Dracula? – well, she's still there, she has this little Bed and Breakfast place…and so are my father's journals. We left a lot of stuff with her when we moved back down here." 

Spike began to follow her thread of thought. "Let me guess, a journal revisit is on the cards." 

"The thing is, Spike, there were all these allusions that – they seemed to point to something to do with vampires. Lots of oblique references to stakes and things. I don't know, maybe it was just research for the book. But he was killed by a wound to the neck, Spike, and I can't help thinking - maybe that was the price of the book itself. It's got to be worth a try." 

Spike nodded, and replied with momentary lightness, "I've got it. Off to pack my bucket and spade right now. Figuratively speaking. I don't think I have a bucket and spade. Lost them with the whole memory deal." 

"Thank you. I would have gone myself, Spike, but I…I couldn't dream of going anywhere…not now…" Karen's voice betrayed a sudden helplessness.

Spike put his hand on her shoulder in a gesture of wordless comfort. "You'll find her."

* * * * * * * * * * *

Giles and Dawn had been up for several hours by the time Buffy emerged. As she stood with her back to them at the hotel breakfast table, pouring herself a cup of coffee, Giles detailed the plan for the day. 

"I heard from Karen this morning. She's had to cancel our engagement today – it seems something's come up that demands her immediate attention. She wasn't terribly specific, but she did say she'd be in touch this evening to explain. In the mean time I suggest we conduct our own investigation of vampire activity in the area."

As Buffy limped over to where they were sitting Dawn exclaimed in concern. "Buffy, you're hurt? What happened?"

Buffy smiled. "That would be me conducting my own investigation of vampire activity in the area. I had a head start. It's kind of a Slayer's prerogative." 

Giles looked up. "So the vampires are – "

"Active? You could say." Buffy continued her explanation with an almost uncomfortable haste. "There was a little girl. _Is_ a little girl. Nearly a was. But, thanks to me, a wasn't. Am I still making sense?"

"Not entirely." Giles returned, his face a picture of fond bemusement.

"And the vamps?" Dawn asked.

Buffy shrugged. "Nothing special."

"So they're like, dusty, now?" Dawn ventured.

"They got away. It happens."

Giles and Dawn exchanged a look, and he interjected rather hurriedly, "Yes, of course." He removed his glasses, and added, "Well, there's always a next time."

Buffy shook her head darkly, and when she replied it seemed she was speaking more to herself than anyone else. "This one has his next times just about used up."

* * * * * * * * * * *

Sylvia Newport was not unlike her brother, a little older, and a little greyer, but with the same unassuming quietness. She had welcomed Spike into her home without ceremony and without question, only enquiring briefly about the train journey and then leaving him undisturbed to investigate the contents of her long-neglected attic. The room was large and airy, and the Yorkshire coast simmered with summer madness as outside seagulls swooped and the strong, warm breeze rustled through the treetops, revealing the occasional flash of the sparkling white sea. 

It was deep into the afternoon, and the sun hung low in a hazy sky by the time Spike found anything of any real relevance. The journal entry was dated 19th October 1977 and read simply: 

_Revise and update V in L for new edition. _

It was not much, but it was something, and Spike felt a surge of anticipation as he read on. Eventually he found it. The very last entry John Gardener had ever made in his journal:

15th May 1980 

Still waiting on the P&H interview Possible LK involved in MG affair – check statement from 11-79. 

_Have a new lead on W the B. _

And it was only then he noticed it. There, lying on the floor, a torn, tattered page that must have lain, lodged inside one of the journals, for a generation. He knew, even before he unfolded it, what it was. A quick glance at the all too familiar first line proved his intuition correct:

'Drusilla's most notorious protégé was the failed poet William the Bloody…' 

But what he saw next chilled him to the very core of his being. Scrawled across the bottom of the page, in ink that had bled into the dark stains surrounding it, was a twenty-year old message that, thoughbarely legible, spelt out its meaning with unutterable clarity. 

The incessant song of a bird poured through the open window as the sun shone relentlessly down, illuminating the words with a fierce glow. And Spike felt his world collapse from underneath him as he read:

_From the "failed poet"_

To the tabloid hack 

_I'm a bloody animal _

_And I'm back._

_Spike._

To be continued…


	5. Chapter 5

Spelt Out in the Stars Chapter 5 Day turned to night, anonymously. As the tide ebbed out the darkness drifted in, flotsam and jetsam, chasing the waves. Inside, Spike sat, motionless, as the lengthening shadows knit together until moonlight spilt onto his rigid frame, exposing the truth etched on his face. I killed him. And he got up and left the room without looking back, slamming the door so hard behind him that the whole house shook. 

* * * * * * * * *

Giles knew that expression. He had seen it before, and it was always the same. Realisation was never a thing of beauty, bad news inevitable. When you are the Slayer you make your own luck; every day you cheat fate.

"It's her. It's got to be her." Buffy's face darkened at the news. "God, I thought she was safe. I took on the big bad. It's not like she hung round for the show."

"The big bad?" Giles queried the expression.

"Yeah, he…em…he had a few inches on me. Definitely ahead in the big stakes. And badder, too. Being a vampire and everything. Vampires, I mean. Lots of. All of them bigger. General big-ness." 

Her disquiet confirmed Giles' suspicion of that morning, that the encounter had unsettled her more than she was prepared to admit. But he said nothing, choosing instead to address a different subject. "Will you take Dawn with you?"

"Dawn as in my little sister Dawn? No."

Giles looked surprised. "I thought we agreed that Dawn should be allowed to patrol sometimes."

"Yes, and now is not that time. Dawn is too trusting. Remember Chapter Hallowe'en in the Dawnmeister Chronicles? We have to get over the whole kissing vampires deal before we reach the killing them part." Buffy shifted, uncomfortably, as she said it. 

"Buffy, she knew the vampire in question as a boy she'd encountered at a party. She's hardly going to be thrown off her guard by a familiar face round here."

"I'm not taking her, Giles, not here, not now. It's too dangerous." Buffy returned shortly, "This is between me and the evil undead. Undeads. More than one. The whole tribe." 

"I think you'll find 'undead' was an adequate plural." Giles volunteered.

Buffy ran her fingers through her hair. "So who do I kill for information around here? Spike has been my route to the demon world for so long. I wouldn't know where to start looking for the man himself."

"I'm not sure it's in our interests to go through Spike, here, Buffy."

"Giles, it is _always_ in my interest to go through Spike. Preferably with something sharp and wooden and not un-stake-y." Only the tiniest flicker at the back of her eyes told how nearly she had slipped up. She looked up, returning firmly to the matter in hand. "I'm good, I have an idea where I might find them." She paused. "Or where they might find me."

It did not take Buffy long to find the place she and Spike had fought the night before. She remembered, and it was not all she remembered. Standing there in the dimly-lit back street, she recalled another night, another street, one glorious, mad moment outside the Bronze. And she felt it, even now, his hand against her shoulder, holding her in a clasp so safe that the more she tried to lose herself in it, the more she knew she was found. 

Suddenly she heard a sound behind her, and spun round.

"Slayer. We have something you want. I'm sure we can come to some arrangement."

But they had underestimated her, and in one short, sharp manoeuvre she had their spokesman pinned to the wall. "You wanna play? Fine. Here's the deal. You talk or you die. Where is he?"

"He? I thought you came for the girl."

Buffy shot the vampire a look of disdain. "I did."

"You want the girl back? You'll never get the girl back." He smiled, insidiously. "But you should take her home." He twisted his gaze over her shoulder, and called softly into the darkness. "Lycaena. The Slayer will see you home."

Buffy turned round, and there she was, the same girl she had seen with Spike the previous evening, and yet there was something about her that was somehow different. She flung the vampire to one side as she reached out for Elizabeth, taking her hands in hers as she moved to comfort her. But Elizabeth did not respond, and looking into her eyes, it struck Buffy suddenly she was looking into her own.

Karen and Martin, sleepless and harrowed, met the still silent Elizabeth with unqualified joy. But Buffy brushed aside their gratitude with an unease that Giles noted with concern, and did not forget. 

Buffy slept long into the morning the following day, until she was woken eventually by the sound of the telephone ringing. When she appeared Giles reported the news. "It was Karen." He watched the colour drain from Buffy's face.

"Elizabeth?"

"Elizabeth is fine. But it seems we have another missing person on our hands. Karen's been trying to contact a friend of hers, who was staying with her sister-in-law, but it seems he went out last night and didn't return. He was helping Karen investigate the murder of her father, and of the girl - the suspected vampire killing she brought us here for." Buffy nodded, and Giles continued. "Karen's worried he may have found something out and got into some kind of trouble. Anyway, she doesn't want to put Elizabeth through anything more, so I said we would take care of it. We need to try and find her friend, who goes by the name – ironically enough – of Spike."

"Spike?" Buffy gasped.

"It's a common enough nickname."

"Yes, because the world is full of people who make their name torturing other people with railroad spikes."

"Oh, come on, Buffy, what's the chance of running into Spike here?"

"Given the chance I will be running into Spike right here," Buffy vowed, wickedly, pressing her clenched fist against her heart.

Giles smiled as he turned to go. "Oh Buffy? Lycaena, the name you heard the vampire use for Elizabeth? Apparently it's a species of butterfly. Not very helpful, I know, but I'll see what I can find out about where the name comes from." 

* * * * * * * * *

The summer evening brimmed with life and energy. As the clouds raced the surf across the horizon, the sea kaleidoscoped from blue to steel, and, intermittently, the sun broke out across the water in a shower of diamonds. A biting wind chewed at the cliff face, and Spike was glad of the warmth of Martin's jacket, as glad as he had been of it the night before, huddled on the seafront amidst the bright lights of the hotels and the amusement arcades. Eventually he had slept, exhausted, but his sleep had been troubled by dreams: dreams so vivid, and sharp, that he knew they were more than dreams; they were memories. His past had returned to him, battered and broken, like remnants of a shipwreck carried by the tide. He remembered Angelus, and Darla, and Drusilla, and one fight in a New York subway tunnel that played over and over again, as if the girl, the brilliant, angry girl who had come so close to defeating him, was somehow significant. He remembered John Gardener, the journalist who had pushed his luck, the man who had dared to play him at his own game, risk, and fallen prey to the whim of Drusilla and his own, black-hearted joie de vivre.

But he did not remember _her_. 

As he walked along the cliff top, he heard the screams and laughter below, and the words of Karen ran through his head. "That girl was killed by a vampire. You're not a vampire." Damn it, what am I then? he demanded of the sky above him. Suddenly, in amongst the mewing of the seagulls he heard something else, a faint cry barely audible above the sound of the sea. 

"Help!" 

He followed the path down as the cliff dipped towards the bay, calling out as he approached. "Where are you?"

"Hello? Is somebody there? Please, you have to help me."

He knelt down at the cliff edge, and leaning over saw just below him the crown of a dark, bedraggled head. She was a girl, and she was shivering, and beyond that all he knew was this: he had not saved Elizabeth. He had to save this girl.

"I'm here. Are you OK?" 

"I'm stuck. I got cut off by the tide and tried to climb up here, but I got kinda wedged." The faintest tremor in her voice betrayed her anxiety.

Spike gripped the edge of the turf with one hand as he leaned over to offer her his free hand. "Can you reach?"

"Reach what?"

"Hang on." He edged further forward, supporting himself by clutching at a jagged spear on the rock face, as he reached down to take hold of her under her shoulders. "I've got you, alright?" Not far below the sea rocked back and forth at the foot of the cliff. "You're gonna have to use your feet." Spike held the girl tightly as he dug his knees firmly into the ground. Supported by his arms, she inched painstakingly up to safety.

Spike held out his jacket to her. "Here, put this on – you're cold." 

She pushed her wet, salty hair out of her eyes, rubbing them in astonishment. "Spike?" She stared at him in amazement. "Spike, what…what on earth? You're _here_?"

"I get around." Spike answered casually, but inwardly he burned with curiosity.

The girl reached out to take the jacket from him. "Who'd you kill to get this?" She grinned. "I'm joking. Don't look at me like that. We have your coat. The nice one. Well, back in Sunnydale."

Spike longed to ask who she was, and what she meant, but something told him to play along with it, to find out what he could without throwing her off her guard. As they stood there the sun emerged from behind a cloud, flooding the cliff top with amber light. The girl pulled off the jacket hurriedly, and held it out towards him.

"Spike, quick, the sun!" She registered his lack of reaction in surprise. "Spike? Shouldn't you be all smokey by now?"

"I…em…no…English sun. Doesn't count. It's not…em…sunny enough. Unlike em…Sunnydale which is obviously…em…sunny."

"Whatever." She paused for a moment. "Don't let Buffy know you're here. She'll freak."

"Right."

"She told me what happened. Well, Xander did actually."

"He did, did he?" Spike did not have the remotest idea what she was talking about, but he was starting to enjoy himself. "Bloody Xander. Boy should learn to keep his mouth shut."

"What, you thought you could do something like that and everyone would just keep quiet about it and hope it would go away?"

"I…em…"

"You went away, Spike. Did you think you could get away from it, from what you are? You know you can't. Someday when you're least expecting it it's gonna come up and hit you."

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Look, you're not friendly with the little blonde chick are you?" 

"Who?"

"Never mind."

"I have to get back." She set off along the path, but stopped, and turned back towards him, suddenly. 

"Spike I…I think she understands. Why." 

And she hurried away, as if she was afraid she had said something she shoudn't.

Dawn's return to Sylvia Newport's guesthouse was met with what, try as it might, wore admonishment only as a very transparent cover for relief. Buffy greeted her sister with a severity undermined by the warmth of her hug. "Dawn, where have you _been_? We've been here like, three hours, and _already_ we can't account for two of them?"

"I went to the beach. You knew that."

Buffy put her hands on her hips in a gesture Dawn knew better than to oppose. "You didn't say you were moving in. What took you so long?"

"I got cut off by the tide." Dawn saw the alarm registered by both Buffy and Giles and put in quickly, "It's OK, really, I'm fine." She paused, unsure whether or not to share the rest of her story, but the temptation was too strong. "You will never believe who came to my rescue."

"Surprise us." Buffy prompted.

"You're not gonna like this." Dawn bit her lip. "It was Spike." She glanced at Buffy, anxiously. "Don't get mad."

Giles was astounded. "Spike? Here? In daylight? Are you sure?"

But to his surprise it was Buffy who answered, in a voice strangely matter-of-fact. "It was him, Giles. I…em…it was Spike. The vamp I fought the night before last. All unchipped and evil."

"And you tell us this _now_?" Giles felt entitled to a little mild indignation. 

Dawn was surprised. "He didn't seem evil."

Buffy shrugged. "That's Spike. He likes to play the bloodlust kinda cool. Ask Will. Or Spike, for that matter."

"He seemed kind of confused," Dawn persisted.

"Spike? Confused? Well that's weird because I remember Spike being Mr Nice-And-Straightforward guy." Buffy smiled as she turned back to her sister. "Dawnie, you should go get changed out of those wet things." 

As Dawn left the room Buffy turned to her watcher with renewed seriousness in her eyes. "Giles, this is bad. You don't think the Gem of Amara – "

Giles shook his head firmly. "It was destroyed, Buffy. Angel took care of that."

"Well what is this then? You're telling me they do Factor Vampire in the sun protection range now?"

"I'm as puzzled as you are, Buffy. And why would he be _here_?"

Buffy tossed her hair back from her face in exasperation. "Why do you think he's here? Why was he in London? What was he doing in Sunnydale in the first place? Come on Giles, this is Spike we're talking about. Remember Spike? You Slayer, me kill. Predictable, but you have to give the guy credit for consistency."

"Buffy, I think we can be fairly certain that killing you has fallen some way down Spike's list of priorities over the last year or so. And his behaviour to Dawn this afternoon suggests – "

"- That he's still the same twisted game player he's always been?" Buffy interrupted, her voice smouldering with sudden fury. "So he infiltrated, Giles, he led us all to believe he wanted something he didn't, to get what he really wanted, which has always been the one, same thing. Me, dead."

"But Buffy, I was there. When you…when you died. He wept, Buffy. He begged us to bury you after sunset so he could be there, did Dawn ever tell you that?"

"Of course he'd want to be there. He'd lived half his life for that moment."

Giles persevered. "Yours was the best guarded grave in all of California. He never said a word about it, but we knew. After we'd finished patrolling, when he wasn't watching Dawn, he would go and sit there, sometimes the whole night." 

"And I would be touched, if it hadn't always been his greatest wish to dance on my grave."

"Buffy, he fought side by side with us when you were gone. He took care of Dawn – "  
  
Buffy turned to Giles almost fiercely. "Why are you defending him?"

"I'm not defending him. I'm just pointing out that Spike has been a useful ally in the past."

"Yeah, and with useful allies like Spike who needs enemies?"

Giles did not reply immediately, and when he did, he seemed almost reluctant to do so. "Buffy, have you considered the possibility that Spike may, somehow, be human?"

"What?"

"It's not impossible."

"Giles, I think I know a vampire when I come across one. Particularly _this_ vampire. Besides, he had the whole super-strength thing going for him still."

"Are you sure?"

"He got away, didn't he?" And she walked over to the window.

Giles paused, before venturing, "Buffy, do you remember what you said about Glory? She told you she could squash you in a second, and yet she didn't. And you remember why?"

Buffy had her back to him, and did not answer.

"Because you had power over her, Buffy. You had power over her, because ... because you had something she wanted."

A palpable silence hung in the air. Giles turned to leave. He paused, briefly, as he took hold of the door handle. 

"Buffy, is it so very preposterous that you might need something from him?"

But she was staring intently out of the window, and did not turn round, even when the door clicked shut behind him.

To be continued…


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I really should have done this ages ago. Those of you who are very clever will have noticed I have already lifted and appropriated various quotes from past episodes of the show – trust me, they are all there for a reason (except the line from the middle of 'Intervention', which is there purely as an homage to one of my favourite bits of dialogue ever! Not the first slayer bit – the Buffy line from later on!) 

Author's note: Poor Buffy, I know she's seemed a bit pre-menstrual (!) the last couple of chapters, but at last she gets a scene or two from her own pov. And about time. This was a very special chapter for me, it's been a labour of love for you, my lovely readers, I've been longing to write this one for ages and it didn't turn out at all in the way I expected! Please let me know whether I got it right.

Spelt Out in the Stars 

Chapter 6 

"Where are you going?" Giles put down his morning mug of tea just in time to catch a glint of fair hair in the hallway mirror.

"Out."

"Buffy – " 

But the front door had already snapped shut behind her.

The morning was bright and busy as Buffy made her way through the steep, narrow streets of the town towards the cliff path. She climbed until she found a place to rest, high on the cliff top, and she sat and gave herself up to the view. 

She remembered waking up looking into a sea of blue, a sea as deep, and as content as this. And she had sunk into it, basking in the heat of the light it threw back at her.

The clouds slid through the sky, ice in a long, cool glass of blue curaçao. 

He was just another vampire. She could do it.

_Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day._

Buffy lay back and closed her eyes. The grass was dry and sun-scorched and she felt it crackle against her skin. 

Part of you is desperate to know: what's it like? The only reason you've lasted as long as you have is you've got ties to the world.

And there was the irony of it. He was part of her world. She could wrench him from it as she had done Angel, but she would wear the emptiness of it every day for the rest of her life. 

_Emotions are weakness, Buffy. _

Beneath her, Buffy heard the sea as it teased the sand up the shore and back again. She knew what it was to feel; to laugh; to cry; to love; to doubt; to fear. But a Slayer is brave enough to feel, and to act; strong enough to question, and to overcome. 

So long as you protect the key, the brotherhood will never stop until we destroy it and you. You are the Slayer, and we know what we must do.

Was this it? Was this what she had become? The same cold-blooded killer that she had fought with a love so powerful it had almost pulled the world apart? And yet a love so strong and so beyond self that it had saved that very same world from destruction.

My emotions give me power. 

But that was Dawn, whom she loved unconditionally, endlessly, the same, unstoppable love that had saved Willow. 

It was not what she felt for Spike. Spike was just there. 

Spike was always just there.

And it mattered, somehow.

A tide of sunlight washed over her as she pictured in her mind one, wild night at the Bronze, when he had found her, lost in despair, and held her, still, in his gaze.

_Life is just this. It's living_.

She had seen it, even then, a lustre kindled by a life lived only for the moment, and every moment she had given him glowing back at her.

_The hardest thing in this world ... is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me. _

He would have lived forever just for the memory of her. She knew it. She had known it the moment she saw him, that unforgettable one-hundred-and-forty-eighth day. But he had lived for her until she hardly knew if she owned her own life anymore.

_You have to go on living. So one of us is living._

He was just another vampire. A parasite who sustained his own existence by feeding off the lives of others. Including hers.

_I love you. You know I do._

Did it mean anything?

Buffy sat up, blinking at the brilliance of the light.

_You are full of love. You love with all of your soul. It's brighter than the fire ... blinding. That's why you pull away from it.   
I'm full of love? I'm not losing it?   
Only if you reject it. Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love ... give ... forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature._

The sun from its height and the sea in its blue splendour looked on her and smiled knowingly. Because this Slayer knew her duty. And the emotions that she fought were not guilt, or nostalgia, or uncertainty. They were anger, and pain.

_Love ... give ... forgive. Risk the pain._

It was late afternoon when Buffy returned to the guesthouse, and she found Dawn and Giles thick in what appeared to be some hilarious tale about –

"What is that doing here?" Buffy looked in disbelief at the wedding couple figurine. "Dawn? What, we had all of thirty minutes to pack and you managed to bring that?" She paused. "No, wait, I can see how that would happen."

Dawn smiled up at her sister. "Giles has been telling me all about it."

"Giles was blind. Giles cannot possibly know _all_ about it."

Giles held up his hand in disagreement. "I can assure you, Buffy, even in audio, it was more than sufficiently graphic."

Dawn picked up the figurine and examined it curiously. "Spike wasn't blind. I bet he'd be happy to tell us what it was like on the inside."

Buffy raised her eyebrows at the expression, but her face clouded as she pleaded more seriously, "Dawn, listen to me, Spike is dangerous."

"Why did you take me to his crypt then?"

"That was before – Dawn, you have to understand, things have changed. No-chip Spike is like no-chip…em… something that's not good without chips."

"Spike?"

"Spike, for instance."

"It's a tautology." Giles interjected.

"It's not that bad, is it?"

"You can't compare Spike to Spike. It's not a useful analogy."

Buffy pouted. "Well you try." 

"Fish." Dawn supplied helpfully.

"I'm sorry?"

"Goes with chips."

"Does it?" Buffy looked unconvinced.

"Whitby is renowned for its fish and chips," Giles explained, "so Dawn and I had some for lunch."

"Go with the cholesterol, Giles."

"Fries. English chips are what you would call fries."

"Again, go with the cholesterol Giles."

"We rode donkeys." Dawn added cheerfully.

"And this was useful research _how_?" Buffy demanded.

"Oh, and you spent the day battling evil sunbathers, did you?" Giles could muster biting sarcasm when the situation called for it.

"I was training. Special non-fighty-non-exercisey kind of training. I was developing my…em…spiritual side. What? It's the kind of thing _you_ would come out with." 

Giles paused for a moment, and then said, slowly, "Buffy, I've been thinking about what you said yesterday – about Spike's motives for being here? Think about it, Buffy, we bought our tickets at the airport two hours before the flight. Within an hour of our arrival in London you went out patrolling and ran into him. And we know that Spike was here in Whitby before we were. You can hardly accuse him of following you. If anything, it's the other way round."

Buffy's eyes widened. "I am not stalking Spike. But I'm starting to think you might be." She smiled, but said with renewed gravity, "We have to assume the worst, Giles. What should we tell Sylvia? Spike could come back here at any time."

Giles removed his glasses and appeared to devote all his attention to cleaning them. "There's not much chance of that. You're sleeping in his room."

Buffy opened her mouth to make an indignant retort, but thought better of it, and only said quietly. "I'll sort it, Giles. I'll go, and I will find Spike, and I will do whatever I have to do."

It was an understated sunset; a background sunset; a quiet-hued, ice cream sunset that melted into dusk behind a great grey sea that did not deign to notice. Spike had seen ten thousand sunsets, but he stopped, and watched, for the four times as many he had only dreamed. And as he stood, leaning on the rail at the end of the pier, cigarette smoke blowing into the pink mist before him, it got him. Joy. The sheer ecstasy of being alive. The poet William would have sought to catch it, to capture it in words that he might hold on to it forever. But the man Spike lived it and breathed it and wanted nothing more than now: to bask in this something so beyond him that it almost broke him. Beyond picture, beyond poem. It was a promise. And because in that moment truth was brighter than reason, he fashioned his hope, and he painted it green-eyed and golden-haired.

The footsteps behind him on the pier seemed somehow inevitable, and the voice that greeted him could not have been any other. "The sun sets and she appears." She rested her hands on the rail beside him. "Hello Spike."

He acknowledged her with a nod and a glance. Buffy noticed his eyes resting on the stake she was holding and smiled wryly. "I came to kill you."

"With that? Trust me. Won't help."

In the half-light she turned to look at him, because she caught it in his voice and part of her yearned to find it again in his eyes. That steady blue hold that had promised to keep her alive when no-one else in the world could give her a reason to go on.

_Life is just this. It's living._

She remembered another evening, that night long ago when the world seemed about to crumble in her hands, and those same eyes had glittered into hers.

_I told you. I want to save the world._

Buffy looked down, thoughtfully, as she turned the stake over in her hands. "You do remember that you're a vampire, right?"

_The truth is, I like this world. It's all right here. _

And she had seen it, that same sparkle, that same wicked pleasure in being alive, and knowing that she needed him.  
  


"The things we remember aren't always the things that matter." Spike's eyes were fixed on the horizon, but he was more conscious of her standing there beside him than he was of his own heart beating.

"Who are you to stand there and tell me what matters?"

"I'm not what you think I am."

"Why should I listen to anything you say, Spike? After what you did to me – " 

Spike could only suppose she was talking about their encounter in London, and he was stung by the disgust in her voice. "How can you say that? You asked for it."__

Buffy rounded on him, incensed. "You're sick, do you know that? I admit, I messed you around. I know I treated you badly. But nobody asks for that, Spike."

If she had stood where she was, silent and seething, she would have wounded him. But her tiny hands against him, her dear, strong fingers digging into him as she smashed him back into the pier railing, were more comfort than pain. As he regained his balance she spoke, quietly.

"Spike, after what happened with Anya you came and you told me you were sorry. That meant something. Not just to you. To me. I needed you to mean it, Spike." She looked at him. "I thought you did. And then you – god, how could you?"

He caught her wrist as she aimed for his face, holding her long enough to ask, "What do you want?"

She blurted out her answer in frustration. "Don't you see? I need you to apologise. I need you to say you were wrong."

"How can I? I don't even know your name."

Buffy pulled away from him. "We can't pretend this didn't happen. You have to face up to what you did." She turned and stared intently out to sea. "Spike, we both do."

"What? What did I do that was so bad?" 

He watched the colour drain from her face, and when she turned back to him she was shaking with anger. He managed to wrench the stake out of her hand as she launched towards him, but not before he felt the sharp, wooden point cut into the flesh on his hand. For one moment something like concern flickered across her face. But in a moment it was gone, and when she spoke her voice was almost breaking with the violence of her emotion. 

"I can't stand this, I can't stand hating you like this." 

Her eyes blazed her intent as she bent down to pick the stake up, and Spike moved instinctively behind to encircle her trembling body, pinning her arms to her sides.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I hurt you."

Struggling in his grasp, Buffy punctuated each of her words with a sharp stab of her heel. "You didn't hurt me, Spike. You could never hurt me. You're beneath me. Heard that one before?" She continued, her words rushing out in an angry torrent. "Why can't you get it into your stupid head? There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside. You can't make me feel anything real. I could never…forgive…you."

But the saltwater stinging her face was more than sea spray, and she faltered into silence, a silence broken only by the sound of the sea crushing the shore around them. And as she stood, pressed against him, catching her breath, she stopped, suddenly still, mesmerised. Because the soft pounding that rocked her was not _her_ heart beating.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

Author's note: Thank you again for all your lovely reviews, you are angels all, and I love writing for you. Please let me know if you like Chapter 7, it was fun for me! Spelt Out in the Stars 

Chapter 7 

If he had seen it once, he had seen it a million times, reflected the bartender as he glanced over to the corner table. There was the girl; pretty, a little awkward, knotting her legs around her chair as she threw her companion the occasional, tentative, green-eyed sparkle. And there he was, leaning back in his chair, looking for all the world as if he owned the place, and yet never lifting his eyes from her face.

Buffy looked across at Spike as she put down her empty glass. "I'm Buffy, the Vampire Slayer." She watched to see his reaction. "That doesn't mean anything to you?"

"No. Sorry, love." He rocked backwards, mischief lurking in his smile. "What kind of a name is Buffy anyway?"   
  
"Don't even think about it. My mother gave me that name." Buffy's face was suddenly serious, and her voice very soft as she added, "Do you remember her?"

Spike shook his head.

"She liked you." It seemed to have cost her an effort to say it, and they both fell silent. 

Spike thought for a moment, and then asked, "So you're a vampire slayer. You do what, kill vampires?"

"You catch on quick." 

He grinned. "Does it pay well?"

"Strangely enough, I'm yet to meet the vampire that dusts with the words, 'Thank you kind slayer and please accept this hundred dollars as a token of my appreciation.'" 

"Great, I was bloody counting on you to buy the next round." He saw her involuntary smile as he said it, and he continued, his eyes dancing blue laughter at her. "Do you slay ex-vampires too?"

"I'm not picky."

"If I buy you another drink will you reconsider that?"

This time the smile she gave him was genuine. "I might."

Summer nights are often busy, and the pub was crowded, but the bartender had not missed it, the way she had leaned in towards her companion, confidentially, the artful turn of her shoulders, and the wicked twinkle she had flung at him still reflected in his eyes as he stood, waiting, at the bar, to order her drink.

Buffy sank deep into the dark, golden liquid with a long sigh. "Mmmm, this is good."

Spike smirked back at her. "Yorkshire Bitter – best int' world, lass."

She laughed at his imitation of the barman's accent, and he laughed back. "You're sure Elizabeth was safe?"

Buffy nodded, but he caught the doubt in her eyes. "I told you, I saw her home myself." She paused, thoughtfully. "Spike, did you find out who killed Karen's father?"

"I did." His answer was immediate, his face unreadable.

She misunderstood him. "You did? Who?"

"No, Buffy, _I _did. I killed him."

She did not look at him for a moment, but when she did her face registered neither shock nor loathing. "Figures." She saw his surprise at her lack of reaction. "You were a vampire, Spike. You have a past. Not all of it pleasant."

"So there _are_ pleasant bits?"

"I didn't say that."

"Didn't you?"

She had felt it before, those eyes looking straight through her and finding the truth when everyone else was content to accept an excuse. 

"Do you remember why you came to Sunnydale?" She saw his face, and realised. "You don't remember Sunnydale, do you. Shall I begin at the beginning?"

As the barman reached to ring the bell for last orders he caught sight of them again, the girl animated as she recounted some story to her friend, who sometimes laughed, and sometimes gestured, and sometimes just bit his lip and watched her talk.

Spike listened to the tale of his past that fitted so well with the tangle of memories in his head. "Is this true?"

Buffy smiled a little. "I don't know. My source was kinda unreliable."

"_I_ told you this?" The twitch at the edge of her mouth gave him his answer. "Did you pay me for this information?"

"Of course."

"So you _do_ have money. Right, well you can pay for your own drinks in future, love."

She grinned. "It's too late now. Last orders came and went." She looked down at her watch. "We should get back to Sylvia's." Her face dissolved into dimples as she remembered something. "Oh, I've got your room."

"That's OK, you can sleep on the floor." Spike dared her to react. "What, I was there first."

"I _slept_ there first." Buffy never gave up without a fight.

"Doesn't count."

"Why do you get to say what counts?"

"I told you, I was there first."

And the two of them sat, laughing at each other, like a couple of children. After a moment Spike looked across at her more thoughtfully, his voice quiet. "Buffy, in London you tried to kill me. You wouldn't give me a chance. Why do you believe me now?"

The silence lasted so long that he thought she wasn't going to answer at all, and when she did, she would not look at him.

"Back there on the pier…it felt …"

"Right?"

"Real." 

"Come on." He reached out to take hold of her hand as he got to his feet.

"Where are we going?" She asked the question, but everything about her spoke her consent.

"Just out."

She left her hand in his as they walked down the street towards the sea, swinging on it like a little girl as she glanced half-shyly, half-roguishly up at him.

"So don't you remember anything about how you became human?"

"Nothing. It's kind of part of the deal."

"There's a deal?"

"Yeah I…I'm on trial. For a month. I have a month to – "

He stopped suddenly, pulling away from the truth like the sea surging back from the shore.

"To what?"

"To…em…you know…prove my…em…worth as a human."

Even to him, it sounded pathetic, but he knew then, standing facing the vast black sea as it lapped at the silver sand on which they walked, that he could not tell her. 

"What does that make you now then?"

"I don't know for sure." He took hold of her other hand as he turned to face her. "I know what you are though." 

The arch in her eyebrows demanded an answer.

"Pissed."

"I'm not. I'm good. I feel kinda…I don't know…happy. Relaxed. Un-slayer-y."

"That's the beer talking. It's what I meant, love. Pissed. Here in England, that means you've had one too many."

"Oh." She was still smiling up at him, and he could not but smile back at her.

"You have Elizabeth's eyes."

And Elizabeth's eyes smiled back at him, but they were tinged with sadness, because once upon a time it would have been enough for him to look into her eyes and see only her.

Giles looked up as Buffy appeared mid-way through breakfast the following morning, curious to know the outcome of the Slayer's endeavours of the previous evening. "What did you do with Spike?" He spluttered on his mouthful of tea as he suddenly noticed Spike himself standing in the doorway behind her. "On second thoughts, please don't answer that question."

"Giles, please. Don't even _try_ to suggest what I think you are suggesting. You were right, what you said the other day. Spike is human, and he's here to help us grapple the English vampire." Her face betrayed a hint of a smile. "Come on, you _asked_ for that choice of words."

Spike rubbed his eyes sleepily. "Who's this? The sugar daddy?"

"Spike, please. Again with the thing about suggesting I said just now. This is Giles, my Watcher. You lived with him for a bit."

Spike turned pale. 

"No, not like that. You were chained in the bath tub half the time."

Spike raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, as he sat down at the table opposite Giles. 

"Here." Giles pushed a brightly-coloured box towards him. "I suppose you still eat Weetabix."

Spike looked up in dismay. "I ate Weetabix in my vampire days? I am deeply shamed. Can't have done much for my street cred, feeding off the bleeding corpses of cereal packets."

Giles turned to Buffy doubtfully. "Are you sure he's human? Wasn't he always like this?"

Buffy nodded, smiling. "I think we can be pretty sure. Spike has been quite definitely human for all of – "

"Eight days." Spike filled in the answer, so quietly that they hardly heard.

Giles had something else on his mind. "Buffy, I found out something last night that may or may not be important. The origin of the word 'Lycaena' – the name you heard Elizabeth called - is the Greek word 'Lykaina'. It means 'she-wolf.'"

"You're saying that Elizabeth could be…oh my goodness."

"Well, it may not be as simple as that."

"That's the _simple_ option?" Buffy looked perplexed.

"Look, hang on." Spike interjected. "There's something you should know about Elizabeth…about that night she went missing…"

They talked long into the morning, broken only by Dawn's appearance, which was greeted on both her side and Spike's with no small degree of surprise and amusement. Eventually Giles stood up. "I think the best thing to do would be to see what else we can find out about it, before we decide what course of action to take." 

"About what?" The clear voice rang out from the doorway. "Spike? You're here? Why didn't you call?" Karen entered the room, the relief on her face apparent. "Did you find out what happened to my father?"

Spike looked at her in consternation, but as he battled inwardly Buffy answered for him. "Yeah, we did. It has nothing to do with the girl that was killed last week. The vamps that got your father were all done and dusted a long time ago."

Karen was silent for a moment. "Well, thank you. It's better that way, of course. I'm just glad to know."

Giles turned to her. "What are you doing here then?"

She paused. "Elizabeth has been…well, since…since what happened she hasn't talked at all. We were advised to get her away from London…from whatever happened. The consultant thought a change of scenery might help speed her recovery. So we thought we'd come and pay you all a visit." She smiled, brightly. "Martin and Elizabeth have already gone on to the seaside. Sylvia and I are just off to join them. Do any of you want to come?"

Dawn was keen to go, but it was agreed that the others would stay behind and continue their research.

Buffy looked thoughtful as the Newport family and Dawn left. "Should somebody tell them?"

Spike declined. "Don't look at me. I'm not good with the 'Oh, by the way, your daughter's a werewolf' line."

"I don't think she is." Giles said, suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

He pointed to the page open in front of him. "Elizabeth – when you followed her, Spike, you said you felt like she could see something you couldn't. Look at this. 'Lykophos' - the wolf-light that we call dusk, when only the wolves can see." 

"I thought we just ruled out the wolf bit." Buffy argued.

Giles nodded, cautiously. "Maybe we did. I don't know. I'm going to get on to Angel and see if he and Willow can find anything more in any of the books I have in Sunnydale. In the mean time, I suggest tonight you patrol as usual."

To Buffy, it was a beautiful memory, a part of her past that was warm, and safe, and comforting. As the two of them patrolled together, talking aimlessly and endlessly about nothing in particular, she felt how much she had missed this, and how much she had longed for this: to remember what it was to trust him, and, moreover, what it was to trust herself. To Spike, it was somewhere between heaven and hell: to be so close to her, and yet to be torn apart by the price on his life that he dared not tell her. 

As they approached the water's edge they both stopped. There, silhouetted in the moonlight, standing on the pier in the exact spot they had met the evening before, was the outline of an angular figure. He spoke without turning round, and his voice was thin, and rasping.

"Lycaena saw you here. She called us. She is always with us, and we are always in your shadow."

"God, I love it when they talk dirty." Buffy's voice was dark with sarcasm as she walked towards him, but he swung round suddenly, and his face was as white and still as death itself.

"You can kill me, but you cannot change the end." 

"The end?" There was the faintest trace of curiosity in amidst her scorn. 

"Lycaena saw the Slayer at the side of the Vampire. This vampire. She saw the Vampire, and she showed us where to find him. We found the girl with the Vampire, and we believed she was the Slayer. Lycaena told us the Slayer was such a girl as she, small of stature, with hair of gold. We killed the girl but still the Slayer lived." 

Spike saw his own sickening realisation sweep across Buffy's face, as the vampire continued, in a voice that seemed to come from the night itself.

"We thought we had failed. We were wrong. It is written in the stars. The Slayer willdie. On the thirtieth day the Slayer will die for the soul of the one she is called to save."

To be continued…

[I know…evil cliffhanger again, but stick with me here!]


	8. Chapter 8

Spelt Out in the Stars 

Chapter 8

"OK, I'm gonna have to stop you there." Buffy held up her hand, the gesture dangerously underplayed, her eyes opaque. "C'mon, you want your last words to be quotable, don't you?"

She was all Slayer at that moment, hard and quick and detached. The struggle was short, and the vampire, night-cloaked and black of intent, no match for a girl who had done this a thousand times before. Her grip was iron, vice, and any memory of blood that lingered in his veins was choked out of him.

"Here." She tossed the stake to Spike. "He's all yours."

"What?" 

She looked at him, deadpan but for the twitch at the corner of her mouth. "You'll find the heart just to the left of the breast bone. I recommend the pointy end."

But his face had darkened with something more than hesitation. "What is this? Are you testing me?"

"I - Spike, no, I - " Buffy looked up at him, bewildered.

"You don't trust me now?"

The vampire started to twist in her grasp, and she snapped at Spike in frustration. "Will you just get on and do it!"

"You trusted me yesterday. What was that?"

"Spike, please, just – "

"What, you're only prepared to believe me when you're drunk, is that it?" He didn't want to hurt her. But his head was screaming at him that this was all his fault, that she would die and it was all his fault, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Spike!"

Buffy felt the blood surge to her head as it cracked against the pier rail, the one, last wrench from the vampire sending her crashing backwards. As she fought through the fog in her head she felt him drop against her, crushing the breath from her body. Panic wrapped clammy fingers around her throat as she shuddered under the weight of his breath on her neck. And then _he_ was there. Strong hands that tore the limpet fingers from her hair, her face; strong arms that wrested the vampire off of her; iron will that ground him to ashes. Through the pounding in her head, Buffy was vaguely aware of Spike dropping the stake beside her.

Save her life he might, but ask for her acknowledgment he would not. And as she pulled herself painfully to her feet, the hand he would have offered her was balled so tightly into his other hand that his knuckles were grey.

"Spike, I didn't think – this is it, this is what we do, you and me." Her face softened a little. "We're good, you know. Fastest stake in the west, you 'n' me, partner." But she was talking to the back of his head, and suddenly she couldn't do it anymore; she couldn't be the one standing there making light of the situation when all she wanted was someone to take hold of her hand and tell her it was going to be all right. "Believe it or not, not every vamp I dust prophesies my death, so don't give me a hard time here, OK?"

His eyes were still tracing the horizon as he answered, quietly. "_You're_ having a hard time. I just find out that the whole reason, the only reason Laura was killed was because she was with me."

"She was with you?"

"I told you that."

She knew he had told her, and she didn't know why she'd asked the question.

"I wanted to protect her; I wanted to save her and all I could do was sit there and let her die." His voice was so low she had to strain to catch it. "And I can't, I can't live it all again." 

She heard the heady rush of water from the shower, and she felt it, a million unshed tears rising inside her like a great tidal wave. Buffy sat at the mirror in the bedroom, applying concealer to her bruised face so slowly and deliberately that it might have been her last action on earth. As she hid the layers of pain beneath a layer of make-up she remembered the day, not so very long ago but a world away from now, when she had sought comfort in the soft arms and quiet gaze of Tara.

_I-it's Spike. He can hurt me_

Had he known it? Had he known that he had a hold on her strong enough to wound her more deeply than she could ever have believed possible?

_I don't hurt you. _

He had offered her more than anyone else dared. He had shouldered her pain when the weight of it had threatened to drown her. And she had looked on a bruised and bloodied face so entirely hers that she thought the guilt would drive her mad.

_You always hurt ...the one you love, pet. _

But it was all hers. She could hurt and she could hurt and she could hurt and all he could do was take it. All of it. Until then. Until that fatal day. He had thrust his pain on her, and she had felt it. He had forced her to know his pain, and she had been sickened by the knowledge of it. 

It was so wrong. It was not supposed to be like this.

The door of the en-suite bathroom clicked open, and he stood there, the white towelling bathrobe clinging to his wet body, his hair curling on his forehead. She caught his reflection in the mirror, and she felt how strange it was to see the scar she knew so well cut through his opposite eyebrow. 

"D'you mind if I – " he shook the packet of cigarettes.

"Go ahead."

He did not look at her as he walked over to the window, but he opened it with a gesture so deliberately devil may care that he betrayed himself acutely conscious of his audience. She watched him, and she knew the touch of the fingers that lit the cigarette as well as she knew the dry, heavy smell of the smoke that filtered across to her. 

"I'll pack up my stuff in a minute. Sylvia sorted out the room downstairs." She could only assume the remark was addressed to her, so far away from her was his gaze fixed. 

The hand resting on the window ledge still bore the graze where she had driven the stake into it the night before. Part of her longed to press her own, tired body against his hard, hurting frame as he stood there, aching with some unspoken thought, at the window. But she didn't know what she was to him anymore. This Spike was not the Spike she needed to forgive. This Spike was not the Spike she needed to forgive her.

  
It was so hard. It was so hard to have a head full of memories and to have to face them all alone. 

_Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love ... give ... forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature._

A great, choking sob welled up inside her as she sat, staring, blankly, into the mirror.

She knew he was there. She could not look at him but she was pointedly aware of him as he crossed the room towards her. She felt his breath rise and fall as he sat down on the edge of the bed in front of her. He didn't speak. But he reached across and cradled her hand in his, and neither of them moved.

* * * * * * * * * * * 

Giles looked thoughtfully across at Buffy. "This was the same vampire you took Elizabeth from, in London?"

"Yes."

"And you staked him?"

"Spike took care of that." She glanced across at him, but he was listening intently to Giles.

"And he said that Elizabeth had seen you, with Spike?"

"Yes." 

Giles could not help but notice that the subject was as uncomfortable a one for Spike as it was for the Slayer.

"But we know that Elizabeth is blind."

"Unless she has that magic wolfy eyesight thing you talked about yesterday."

"Unless she has that magic wolfy eyesight thing I – no, just as I feared, it didn't gain anything by repetition." Giles hesitated a moment before he continued. "Buffy, there _is_ something we might do. It's a long shot, but it might be worth a try."

The faintest confetti of rain misted the seafront as they made their way through the bright huddle of tourist attractions to the technicolor exterior of the 'Dracula Experience'. The lurid face of a cartoon vampire leered down at them, the lettering above caked with peeling painted blood. Giles enquired briefly at the ticket office, and the steward, his face set with boredom under his mask of greasepaint, motioned them down a passage laced with synthetic cobwebs. Somehow, they had expected to find a room filled with incense and mystical curiosities, and they were more than surprised to find her there, middle-aged and ordinary, sitting in an armchair watching TV, in a room that bore a rather ugly, seventies wallpaper and smelt of air freshener and furniture polish. 

"I know why you're here." Her voice was soft, an echo of the rain murmuring against the window pane. "Cake?" She held out a plate of supermarket-fresh French fancies.

Giles declined, politely. "We wondered if you might be able to help us."

She smiled round at them as she reached for the remote and turned off the TV. "You killed their leader. You did well."

"What do you know about Elizabeth – Lycaena?" Spike asked the question, and Buffy caught the rough edge to his voice.

"The girl Lycaena has the Slayer's eyes. She sees the world as the Slayer sees it." Her eyes rested briefly on Spike. "She sees the monster in the man."

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked, her mouth suddenly dry with curiosity.

"You are never alone, dear. Every time you look in the mirror you share your reflection with the one who shares your eyes. Every person you meet, Lycaena meets with you."

She took a mouthful of pink-iced cake before she continued.

"The way to the Slayer is through the Vampire. This Vampire. They knew that, and they killed the girl at his side because they thought all they had to do was find the Vampire and they would find the Slayer. But they were wrong."

The room was strangely quiet, and even the rain seemed lulled into silence.

"The Vampire is indeed the way to the Slayer. It is simple. Break the Vampire and you will break the Slayer. Isn't that so, dear?"

Buffy didn't answer.

"Oh Slayer, pretty Slayer. It is nearer than you think. Look at him, you think he can't touch you? Of course he can. This is the Vampire that bargained with the gods for his soul."

She was looking at Spike, her gaze bright and steady.

"And this is the Man who will die three weeks from now if you will not save him."

As the rain beat its fairy tango up and down the streets Giles steered Dawn home, because right now this was between the Slayer and her long-time sparring partner. 

"Where are we going?" Buffy looked across at Spike as she pushed her hair out of her eyes.

The wind whipped up around them as Spike answered. "Up here. This is the Hundred Steps. There's a Church at the top."

"We're going to Church?" In spite of everything she could not resist a smile.

"We have to go somewhere quiet. I can't hear myself think. There's a bloody gale blowing in my head."

Whether it was the steps that were glistening, or the rain in her eyes, she didn't know, but she was lost in a sea that filled her head more than the sound of the waves breaking on the shore below them.

"So you're only human on condition that _I_ save your life? What is this, Beauty and the Beast?"

"Don't flatter yourself, love. You're not that beautiful." 

"I am, and the sooner you get your memory back…" She had said it without thinking, and though she cut herself short her mistake burned across her face.

He stopped, and stared at her, because her meaning was unmistakable. "Are you telling me we – bloody hell, what was I thinking?"

She hit him for that, playfully.

"We _slept_ together? Often?" He caught her little fist in both his hands as she swung it towards him again, and his eyes laughed across at her. "You're a liability, that's what you are."

"You, too. I've saved your sorry life one too many times already."

They climbed in silence for a moment, embraced by a wind that wrapped them together as they mounted the cliff face, step by step.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She asked the question as lightly as she could.

He waited a moment, and when he answered his voice was quiet and his words broken. "I couldn't tell you. I couldn't ever. Not that. It was too much, my life on your conscience. I couldn't live, you having to bear that. Better that I just die. 'About bloody time."

Buffy turned round suddenly. "What did you say?"

He started to repeat it, aware that she was looking at him strangely.

"OK, now stop talking."

And this time there was no rising music, no closing curtain, no falling building, just his mouth, and hers, and a world oblivious to it.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

Spelt Out in the Stars 

Chapter 9

She pulled away from him suddenly, and he wondered if he only imagined the lingering touch of her fingers at the back of his neck.

"Did it work? Do you feel saved?"

He said nothing, because he knew it was not the reason she had kissed him, anymore than this was anything the sky above them had not witnessed before.

"Guess not." She walked a little way past him, taking a sudden interest in the lettering on a memorial just beyond them. He watched as she traced her fingers around the carved stonework. 

"Looks like it's you or me then, Vampire."

He didn't imagine it then, the whisper of her fingers against his face, as she reached out, almost involuntarily, towards him. But he lifted her hand gently away from him, and she saw something like hurt in his eyes. 

"I'm sorry, Spike, I – I didn't mean – " She bit her lip. "You're not a vampire."

"I'll always be a vampire."

They stood in the churchyard, the hundred steps stretched out before them, the rain coloured with afternoon and scattered shafts of stained-glass sunlight.

_It's all you are Spike. What you are in this conversation, what you are in my head_.

"It's all I am to you, Buffy, it's all I'll ever be."

"You're more than that, Spike." And in her head she acknowledged the truth. You've always been more than that. 

"In three weeks' time it won't make any difference what I am."

"Why three weeks? Why did she say that?" She moved across a little way in front of him as she asked the question, her eyes fixed far into the distance.

"I had a month. A month from the moment I became human to find you and persuade you to save my life." He looked up. "Buffy, I swear I didn't know what it meant."

He heard the wry smile in her voice. "Of course, a month. The thirtieth day." She turned back to face him. "What do we do now?"

We. He heard that one word above the sea, and the rain, and the wind, and he would still have heard it if every seagull in the world had chosen to open its beak and scream at that moment.

He walked towards her, the faintest trace of a smile playing around his mouth. "What would you do, if you had three weeks?"

"Don't think like that."

"You offering to die for me, Slayer?"

"There must be another way."

"There is no other way; it's you or me, you said it yourself." He smiled at her, quietly. "The world needs you, Slayer, the Little Bit, the Watcher, the About-to-be-sucked-dry, they all need you. And I need you, Slayer. I need you too much to go on without you. So three weeks from now I'm going to go, and I don't need tears, or flowers, or even one of these." He nodded his head towards the gravestones assembled behind them. "I'll just be gone, and then you needn't worry your little head about me any more."

She was silent, and he said, suddenly, his voice low with gentle irony. "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

"What?"

"It was the inscription on the tombstone back there, the sailor that died saving the rest of his crew in a shipwreck."

"I didn't see that one."

"Yes you did." He was looking straight at her. "You were standing there reading it."

Buffy was quiet for a moment, but though she changed the subject, he had not missed the confession in her eyes. "What is that over there?"

Spike followed her gaze, across the opposite cliff. "The arch? Whalebone."

"Look, don't you think she looks like the Dracula woman?"

He saw what she meant, the silhouette of a figure standing beneath the arch. But he heard the catch of her breath beside him, and he knew she was reliving the woman's prophecy.

"Oh, god, Spike."

She turned to him with eyes that glistened with something more than rain, but he was looking at her with that old blue invitation, and he was exactly the way she remembered him.

"Can I take it you'll cut me some slack then, Slayer?"

She wound her hands around his neck, and her eyes were very wicked as she leaned into his. "Do you want me too?"

The rain had stopped, and the glow of a sinking sun illuminated a mirror world by the time they walked back, through the puddles. 

She lifted her head from his shoulder as a sudden thought struck her. "You know, Spike, I'm a bit freaked by this Slayer eye thing."

"Now you put it like that, love, I'm freaked too."

"Do you think Elizabeth really sees everything I see?"

"I don't know. It seems – " He paused, searching for the right words. "When I first met her, Buffy, it felt like she was the first person to look at me and not judge me. I knew she couldn't see me, but it felt like she believed in me. She trusted me, Buffy, just like that. And I thought then that it was _because_ she couldn't see me, because she didn't know what I really was."

"Spike, this doesn't make sense." She looked across at him. "If Elizabeth truly saw you the way I saw you she wouldn't have trusted you for a moment."

It was only half a joke, and she saw the sudden tightening of his jaw. But he, too, recognised the truth of it.

"None of it makes sense. Buffy, I think we should go and find Elizabeth and see for ourselves."

Karen was a lawyer, and a successful one, and in a way that was subtle and yet unmistakable, everything about the hotel reflected that. It was smart, and confident, and expensive. Nothing opulent, everything calculated to impress. She had made a career out of persuading people to believe that what she said was the truth, and when she told them, brightly, that, "Elizabeth was fine, absolutely fine, and they were all having a lovely holiday," she intended them to see exactly that. 

Buffy watched, in silence, as the tiny, beautiful girl who had seemed so cold in her arms that night in London made her way, hesitantly, into the room. She noted the change in her demeanour as she recognised Spike's voice, and she looked on with something not so very far from longing as the little girl climbed into his lap, and he ran his hand gently, absently, over the back of the black-braided head.

And suddenly it didn't matter any more; none of it mattered. She couldn't carry on holding onto a past that had no bearing on the future, any more than she could think about a future that stretched no further than the next three weeks. She watched as Elizabeth prodded soft, brown fingers into Spike's face, and she knew what she wanted. Deep within her mind she traced the line of his shoulders with the fall of her hair; drew the length of his back with the cool of her hands; pressed the wall of his thigh with the curve of her knee.

She could need him and still be the Slayer.

Spike watched the face of the little girl as she clung to him, her hands skipping with silent laughter. But it was not the touch of her fingers he felt on his face. It was the eyes of the Slayer.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Buffy, thank goodness you're here." Buffy could see he was agitated, by the finger tracks running through his hair, and his glasses resting precariously near the table edge.

"Giles, what is it?" She felt Spike hold his breath as the eyes he held in his flared green impatience. "You know she lied to us, don't you? Your strange cake woman at the Dracula place?"

"Unfortunately, Buffy, she wields the power of something rather more sinister than strange cakes." 

"What is she? Demon? Hell god?" 

They looked at her, the two men that loved the Slayer: the one touched by an affection he might have felt for a daughter, had he had one; the other broken by a fast-held, long-treasured emotion that ran deeper than his very soul. And they saw a woman who, just then, was everything she needed to be, and knew it. She stood there, beautiful and determined, her conviction set on her face. I can do this. It's nothing I haven't come across before. 

Giles shook his head, slowly. "She's neither hell god, nor demon, nor anything so far-removed from what the world would want to call reality. She is exactly what we saw: a woman; an ordinary, lonely woman. Her power lies not in what she is, but in what she is capable of becoming."

"What do you mean?" 

"From everything I have learnt this evening, I believe she means to engage in an ancient ritual that will tap into a power source that has lain dormant for thousands of years." 

"Don't look so serious, Giles. I'm good at rituals, remember? Ancient ones especially. Are we talking world-endy class ritual here?"

Giles spoke, automatically, as if his words were set in stone and could not but take the form they did. "The power she seeks is darker than any power the world has known. It is rooted in an evil that has neither the fire of anger, nor the passion of hatred, nor the depth of pain. It is evil beyond feeling and beyond thought. If she were to succeed in reaching it the force of it would strike her dead instantly."

"Is that good?"

"Unfortunately, not." He paused, his voice suddenly tired and old. "The ritual dictates that there is only one way this surge of dark energy can be withstood."

"Giles, I'm not liking your tone of voice right now. You have the 'somebody has to die' look on your face."

He continued, his face drawn. "If the energy first enters the soul of an Innocent the force will destroy that soul instead. If she could find some, pure soul to shield her from that initial blast of darkness she would be free to channel the remaining power for her own purposes."

Buffy replied with a levity that refused to give in spite of all that weighed upon it. "Wait, I think I know this one. We have to find her and stop her before she can get to anyone that answers to the words pure and soul."

"We may be too late. If I'm right, she already has a hold on just such an Innocent."

"Anyone we know?" The words were lightly spoken, but Buffy heard them echo back at her like a gunshot in a mineshaft. "Oh my god."

Giles saw the realisation as it cracked across her face, and he explained quietly, "Buffy, I've just heard from Willow. She and Angel followed up the information we had, and it was they that pointed me towards this. Do you remember when you first heard that vampire call Elizabeth 'Lycaena', I told you Lycaena was a species of butterfly?" He hesitated. "In Greek mythology, the butterfly is the symbol of Psyche."

"Psyche?"

Spike volunteered an explanation. "Girl was offered as a sacrifice to appease the gods."

"Her name, Psyche, means – "

"Soul." Spike took the word from him before Giles had a chance to finish his sentence.

"And the Slayer's eyes? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Nothing at all. It was a fantasy propped up in order to sustain an illusion, keep us out of the loop. Elizabeth is just an ordinary little girl who happened to be out sleepwalking in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Buffy got to her feet. "Then we have to get to Elizabeth before she does."

"It's too late for that. They already have some kind of hold on her. She hasn't spoken because she's under some form of enchantment. Until we can find a way to reverse the spell, there is nothing we can do to protect her."

"We can at least _try_, Giles." Buffy stood, and the square of her shoulders dared anyone to stand in her way. "You keep working on a way to break that spell. Spike and I will get over to the hotel and keep watch over Elizabeth."

Giles nodded. "Wait a minute, though. We don't know for sure that that's where they are right now, and you need to go straight to them. I have Karen's mobile number; I'll give her a ring to check." He paused, briefly, as he got up and walked towards the door. "Oh, and Buffy? Don't…tell her any of this. The longer we can keep her from knowing, the better."

Spike saw it, as Giles left the room: fear, shadowed across the face of the Slayer, and he knew they were both thinking the same thing. And he knew from the moment Giles appeared, again, in the doorway, his face darkened by the same shadow, that it was more than a thought.

"She's gone." Giles hung his head in a gesture of quiet despair. "She's already gone."

Buffy looked across at him, her hands fixed to her hips. "Then we need to do something about it and we need to do it fast. Do you have any idea when the ritual will take place?"

"Sunset, on the thirtieth day of the Festival of Psyche."

"Which is? Come on, give me a clue. What letter does it begin with?"

"Tomorrow." His face twisted with the irony of it. "It's tomorrow."

"Why is it _always_ tomorrow? Just for once, couldn't somebody schedule their apocalypse at least far enough in advance to give us time to reply to the invitation?"

"The ritual itself began on the first day of the Festival. Tomorrow is just the culmination of it."

"But Giles, you said yourself she's only human. Surely if we find her we can stop her?"

He longed for her assurance to be enough, but the truth of it was inescapable. "Like I said, the ritual is already underway."

"But there _must_ be something we can do." She was still looking at him with those same eyes that had trusted him and believed in him all the years he had known her, her implicit confidence in him staring him in the face.

"There is only one way the ritual can be stopped."

"What? Giles, what is it?"

His head was bowed, and he did not reply. But she thought back to the vampire's words the night before, and she already knew the answer.

TBC

[Come on, I gave you a nice cliff hanger last time…!! Chapter 10 up very soon!]


	10. Chapter 10

Spelt Out in the Stars 

Chapter 10

"Is it me? Do _I _have to die? Again?"

The silence answered her more pointedly than any words could have done. At length Giles looked up at her, and when he spoke, his voice was so heavy she felt it drag across to her.

"The only way the ritual can be stopped is if the power is channelled into a source strong enough to conquer it. A source that holds its own power; power great enough to defeat it."

"Like Slayer strength, for example?"

Spike loved her for that, for the clear, steady gaze that locked into his own, stricken eyes, and the quiet calm in a voice that refused to break.

"Like Slayer strength, for example." Giles echoed her words dully, his eyes, with his words, on the floor.

Buffy thought for a moment. "You're saying if I took Elizabeth's place I could withstand it, this dark power?"

"Not exactly." He looked across at her. "To fight this evil you would have to call on the ultimate source of your power."

Buffy allowed herself the scarcest hint of a smile. "Please, not the First Slayer. Not again. She's scary."

"The First Slayer is not the source of your power."

_Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love will bring you to your gift. Death is your gift_.

"I know." She walked over to the window, and when she spoke again her remark seemed addressed more to the gathering dusk of clouds than to anything else. "Love is my strength; death is my gift." She swung round suddenly, a strange, bright smile on her face. "Spike, what do you get when you cross love with death? Three guesses."

He said nothing, only looked at her, and wanted her, more than he could say.

"Sacrifice. Am I right, Giles?"

He assented, soberly. "It is the greatest manifestation of love. It is in sacrifice that you make your strength complete."

A great, shaking sob suddenly rocked the doorway, and two small arms clutched, desperately, at the Slayer's neck.

"Buffy, you can't. I won't let you."

Buffy reached out and stroked her hair, as she pulled her sister close to her. "Dawnie, it's all right. I'm not going to leave you."

Dawn looked up at her through hard, hot tears. "But Elizabeth? We can't stand by and let her die."

"And we won't, Dawnie, we'll find a way." Buffy glanced across the room over the top of the trembling head nestled against her. "Giles, there _must_ be a way."

And the voice cut across the quiet like a searchlight reaching out to her across the gloom. "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

"Spike, why _do_ you keep saying that?"

"It's what you said. Sacrifice. The greatest manifestation of love."

"Spike, I think we've established that. Try and keep up." Giles gave vent to a well of emotion in that one, small moment of exasperation.

Spike persisted. "So why does it have to be the Slayer that dies?" 

"Did you catch the bit about Slayer strength, by any chance?" Giles spoke in the voice of a man dangerously close to the edge.

"But you said it yourself, the Slayer's strength would not be enough to defeat it. Only a sacrifice could render enough power to overcome it."

"What are you saying, Spike?" 

"Exactly what you think I'm saying. I have three weeks to live. I live three weeks, and I die an anonymous death at the end of it. Or I die tomorrow, and achieve something I never achieved in the whole of my life. Think it over, Watcher, the offer's there."

Buffy was looking at him with something that could almost have been relief, and as much as he did this for her, it tore him in half to think that his death could ever give her joy.

"Would it work, Giles?"

Every wall in the room, every room in the house, every house in the street, craned to hear the reply.

"I believe it would. Spike – "

"Don't say it. If I can get to the end of my life without you bloody fawning over me I will count myself a lucky man."

There was a strange, uneven silence, and the room throbbed with unspoken thoughts.

Giles spoke, eventually. "We still need to work out where this ritual is taking place." 

Buffy thought back to that afternoon, in the churchyard, so very far away.

"No we don't. We already know."

Spike stood by the window long after the sun had set, and long after the others had left the room. He stood, and waited, because everything told him that she would come, that she had to come. It was one night, just one night and he couldn't believe that she would leave him to spend it alone. He did not want to believe it. He did not want to die doubting the one thing that, just for that one, rain-consecrated moment that afternoon, he had believed.

But he stood, and waited, and she did not come.

One sunrise. One last sunrise. Spike looked on the silent world, the great, soaring sky arched over the sleeping sea. It was a broken sunrise, light splintered over the horizon, opalescent under the thin shroud of cigarette smoke. He leaned out of the window, the early morning air rushing to his head.

And he would have given it all up: the vast white expanse that was the sky; the whole shimmering mass that was the sea; the very air that he breathed; just to feel her hands threaded around him as he could almost believe they were now; just to feel her heart racing his as he could almost believe it did, there, against him. She moved, and it was only then that he knew it, that her breath on his neck was real.

Her face was turned towards him. "I love – " 

"Don't."

"What?" She looked up at him in astonishment.

"The impending-death-situation love declaration. It's not what I want from you. It's never been what I want from you."

"You remember?"

"No I don't remember. I know."

They stood in silence for a moment, watching a world that watched them back. She smiled, suddenly, as she turned to face him.

"You're not going to die."

"That's my girl. Positive thinking will get you everywhere." 

She was still smiling at him, straight at him. "You're not going to die."

"Of course, there's a fine line between positive thinking and denial."

It was there, from the crown of her head to the tilt of her chin, bright, escalating joy. "You're not going to die."

"You listening to me, Slayer?"

Was it just the sun haloed on her face, or was she actually shining?

"No, you listen to me." She put both her hands into his, and stood facing him. "You are not going to die."

"Since when?"

"Since always."

His face fell, because for one, mad moment he had thought she meant it. "Nice try, pet." God, how much had happened since he had first uttered those words to her, that night in London not more than a week before.

"OK, since about an hour ago."

He still did not dare believe her. "Don't tell me, Giles had an attack of the conscience, decided three weeks would be pushing it for him, too, and volunteered to take my place. I gotta thank the guy, but really, Slayer, I've got this one. He can take the next assignment. I would aim for an easy staking, though. The bloke looks out of practice."

"Will you listen to me? Giles has nothing to do with this."

"OK, please don't tell me you've made some Faustian pact with the Devil here because I had you down for one of the good guys, Slayer, and I'd like to hang onto that illusion for the few hours I've got left, if you don't mind."

"Spike. Shut up. If you don't stop talking I will just have to kill you here and now."

"At which point Giles would have to step in. Between you and me, Slayer, I'm not sure he's cut out for this sacrifice stuff. I mean, can you see him as all-conquering hero guy?"

"That is _it_. You can die for all I care. I refuse to spend the rest of my life with a man who will not let me get a word in edgeways."

"What did you say?"

"At last, I have your attention."

"Can we go back to the bit about you spending the rest of your life with me?"

"Spike, if you were listening, you might have picked up on an 'I refuse to' in there somewhere."

He smiled. "And if I promise to let you speak?"

"Let me speak and I'll let you know." She smiled back at him. "Listen, I just spent the entire night reading every book Giles owns and battling the fax machine to get through to Willow in order to save your life, so listen to me here. Nobody has to die to save Elizabeth."

"How d'you work that one out?"

"Only the sacrifice of a soul will save her." She paused, watching to see his reaction. "My soul is all that I am, Spike, if I surrendered my soul I'd surrender everything. I'd be nothing. But you – "

He looked at her, only half-believing that she could be saying what he dared to think she might be saying.

"Don't you see? You bargained with the gods for a soul that was already yours; if they took it back you'd be nothing less than what you were before."

"What was I before?"

Buffy looked straight at him, her gaze unfaltering. "Everything you are now."

He thought for a moment. "It's good, Summers, it's good, but there's one thing I want to know."

"What?"

"If you knew all this an hour ago why did you stand here with me all this time before you thought to tell me?"

"Because you've never really seen the sun rise until you've looked at it and thought it was your last."

She had said it with mock gravity, but she saw the realisation cloud his face.

"It _was _my last." 

It hit her too, then, and she said nothing. 

"I dared to hope that one day this might work, Slayer, you and me. I wasn't counting on being a vampire again."

"It doesn't change anything, Spike."

"It changes everything."

She could not look at him, then, because she knew they had had the conversation twice before: once on her doorstep, the day she had shut him out of her home and believed she had shut him out of her life; and once as they walked, together, in search of Dawn, the day after the night she had told herself a thousand times she could pretend had never happened.

She looked up at him, slowly, and pressed her hand against his chest.

"Nobody can take this away from you, Spike. What you feel – here – it's real. It always will be. I felt it, Spike, back there on the pier." And her voice was very quiet, as she added, "I'll always feel it."

He looked at her in silence as she continued. "You risked everything for me, Spike. So I owe you this. I'm going to do what you needed me to do. I'm going to save your life."

Still, he said nothing, as she went on. "You saved my life. Not when you rescued me from demons and protected me from would-be assassins. But when you sat beside me and said nothing; when you dared to laugh me while everyone else could only smother me with pity; when you were just there for me, always, you saved my life. Because you gave me a reason to go on. You told me it yourself, I live because there are people in this world that give me something to live for."

He was beginning to understand her, and inside he was burning with hope.

"You loved me enough to die for me, Spike. Do you love me enough to live for me?"

His eyes were blue, very blue, as he looked at her, the world spinning before him, and then -

"What's wrong?" Because suddenly he shrank back, recoiling from her as if it was killing him just to look at her. "Spike, what is it?"

To be concluded…


	11. Chapter 11

Spelt Out in the Stars 

Chapter 11

She watched, helpless, as the colour drained from his face. 

"Spike, what is it?"

He fought to fix a mask of composure upon his face.

"Nothing, it's nothing. I'm fine."

But he would not look at her, and she could not believe him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

The whalebone arch carved into the clouds high above them as the great, red ball that was the sun

dropped below the cliff edge, draining the light from the sky.

It was all wrong, somehow. Down by the harbour mouth the water thronged with fishing boats; all along the sea front confetti lights flirted with the waves below. It was a world alive, and it was neither the time nor the place for this.

Buffy still had one last hope, one chance that this could all be ended without cost to anyone. If she could somehow force the woman into the archway, to reap her own reward from the ritual she had wrought, they might all be saved.

And suddenly she was there, just as she had been the night before in the Dracula Experience, marked by that same ordinariness. Buffy could almost believe, watching Elizabeth cling to her hand, that Giles was wrong and this was just some game, some stupid misunderstanding. But as she heard the words of the reversal spell Giles was chanting beside her echoed by some, dark, counter-chant, she knew the truth, and she knew she had to act, and act quickly.

Vampire, vampire, vampire. It was nothing to the Slayer, and she fought her way through a sea of dust to Elizabeth, wrenching her from the woman's grasp. But as she clutched at the woman herself, she found she could not touch her, for suddenly she was without form, a wraith of taunting laughter.

"You're too late, Slayer. The ritual is almost complete."

Buffy only knew, then, that she had to stop Elizabeth reaching the archway. She held the little girl tightly against her though she felt the very breath forced out of her body as she did so.

"Spike, quick!"

He did not move.

"Spike, I can't hold on to her much longer. You have to do this."

"I can't." 

She looked at him in desperation. "Please, Spike, you have to trust me."

"I can't stop the ritual."

"You can. You have to believe me, Spike."

"It won't work, Buffy, it won't work because my soul isn't…isn't pure." He spat out the word with an ugly twist scarring his mouth.

"What? Spike, nobody's looking for a virgin sacrifice here. More a kind of pure as in not evil. Not about to end the world. Trust me, you'll do."

The pain shot through her like a thousand darts, and all the time she felt Elizabeth drawn, inexorably, towards the arch.

"I remember, Buffy, I remember everything." His voice was flat, and hollow.

"Which is good, right? Because that would go with the your life being saved thing."

She spoke with a quiet evenness, but something like fire was scorching through her body.

"I remember what happened the last time we met. I remember what I did." 

There was no time for this conversation, no time. 

"What you _did_, Spike, past tense. It's not what you are."

"Isn't it?"

She couldn't do it anymore, she couldn't keep hold of Elizabeth and she couldn't fight this any more. When she spoke she no longer cared what happened; she only knew that what she said was the truth and she couldn't but say it.

"Listen to me, Vampire, do you know how many times you've forgiven me already?" 

She had called him vampire, and it didn't hurt any more; nothing hurt any more.

She continued, although the pain was so much that the words burned in her throat. "How can I hold anything against you when every time I look at you I see the one person in the world who I know will love me whatever I am and whatever I do?"

"You have to say that; you need me to save your life."

"Didn't I tell you that this morning? I always need you to save my life."

Spike looked at her, and he wasn't sure, just then, whether it was pain or emotion that broke her. But he knew she was right, and he knew what he had to do.

He felt it, a bolt of lightning scourging through him as he stood in the archway, the blackness leeching into him, sucking the life from his heart. And somewhere, in the midst of the terror, and the darkness, and the agony, he heard it.

It was the sound of Elizabeth crying.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

There was a moon in the sky, and likely as not the same moon that usually occupied that same space in that same sky, but for all anyone noticed it might not have been there at all.

The girl and the vampire stood on the sand, and the sea at their feet thought, perhaps, they had stood there before. But it was a timeless sea, a great, timeless sea, and it had seen an eternity of befores, and if theirs had been one of them it was more than it could remember.

"Buffy." It still felt strange, to sound her name and own it in the same breath.

"Mmm?"

"Close your eyes."

She did, and she felt the sudden hard, wet surface of the rocks beneath her bare feet as he pulled her, gently, towards him.

"Now look."

She looked, and she saw her own face, glimmering up at her in a pool of moonlight.

"What do you see?"

She remembered that day, five weeks before, when she had looked into the mirror and seen his reflection for the first time. And she was grateful for the memory, but this was now, and it didn't matter any more.

"I always see you, Spike." Her reflection smiled back at her as she looked down into the water. "God, if I was blind I would still see you."

"I love that reflection." He reached up and ran his hand through her hair, and she watched her hair lift and fall in the rockpool mirror below her. "I love your reflection."

"Our reflection." She smiled up at him, softly. "What you can see, there, it's yours too."

And the moon turned its head to look in the opposite direction, just for a moment.

She looked up at him, her eyes deep and green and glowing. "Six weeks. Six, beautiful weeks we've had here. Would you do it all again, if you could?"

"Would you?"

"If I could make this moment last forever I might." She reached up and traced the line of his face with her finger. "But I'm glad we're going home."

He smirked back at her. "Yeah, night flight to Sunnydale which, unfortunately, I now remember."

"You know you love it."

"Of course I love it."

And the sea, the great, timeless sea, judged from her reaction that she liked that "of course", more than she could find words to say.

As they turned to go Buffy stopped for a moment, her eyes laughing up at him, because as she thought back across the weeks they had spent in England she could not help but recognise one, inescapable truth. "OK, I don't believe in coincidence so explain this to me. We meet by chance in London, you stay with Giles' friend, you come across Dawn up here, we meet again, here, and we even stay in the same guesthouse. Do you think somebody was trying to tell us something?"

He bit his lip as he thought for a moment. And when he spoke again he was only half teasing. "You think you choose your destiny, Slayer?" He smiled as he shook his head. "It is spelt out in the stars."

The End


	12. Appendix

**Appendix 1**

Author's note:   
  
  
I really, really hope you liked this. Please, if you could take just a moment to let me know what you think, I would be so grateful; I wrote this for you and what you think is very important! And I can't thank you all enough for your feedback along the way, it has meant the world to me and I love you all for it.   
  
If you would like to know where I see Spike and Buffy going from here then go read my Season 8 Episode 1, you can get to it by clicking on my author name. I am off to finish Episode 2, _'Once More, From The Top'._   
  
I thought I should credit some of my influences and references, so here you go:   
  
**Influences and References** (inspired sub-heading, I know!)   
  
· Obviously Buffy the Vampire Slayer…did you notice?   
  
· _The Little Mermaid_ (Hans Christian Anderson)…everything comes with a price.   
  
· _Beauty and the Beast_ (Charles Perrault?)…the idea that you have to accept the monster before you can have the man…   
  
· Bits of all sorts of Greek myths, especially _Till We Have Faces_, the CS Lewis retelling of the Psyche story. And of course _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_, by the same author.   
  
· For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. _Romans 5 v 10_ Speaks for itself.   
  
References (or _All the Buffy Episodes I Have Stolen Quotes From_)   
  
· Chapter 3: Something Blue.   
· Chapter 4: Fool for Love.   
· Chapter 5: Once More With Feeling, The Initiative, What's My Line Pt 1, Seeing Red, Checkpoint.   
· Chapter 6: Fool for Love, What's My Line Pt 2, Checkpoint, Once More With Feeling, The Gift, As You Were, Intervention, Something Blue, more Intervention, more OMWF, Becoming Pt 2, more Fool for Love, Dead Things.   
· Chapter 7: Something Blue, more Something Blue ('I am deeply shamed'…quite possibly my favourite Spike line EVER!)   
· Chapter 8: Dead Things, Entropy, Intervention, and lots more Intervention (Spike's line at the end…did you spot it?)   
· Chapter 10: Intervention, Lover's Walk, Crush, Wrecked, Fool For Love.   
  
And if anyone is wondering, Whitby is a real place, it does feature in Bram Stoker's _Dracula_, it's a beautiful, extraordinary place, I have to say that because I was born there, and nearly all of the sights and places I mentioned are real. (Including the _Dracula Experience_, so I only hope no-one who has ever worked there reads this!!) And can I just say if you are ever, ever asked out for a pint of Yorkshire bitter, one summer evening in Whitby, by a blond, be-scarred, be-coated male of thirty-ish **do not turn him down!!**   
  
Oh and finally, as well as Season 8 Episode 2 I have one more B/S fic in the making…it's a (are you ready for this?) BtVS – Sesame Street crossover, entitled _'Buffy vs The Count'_, in much the same vein as _' 'A Hairdresser Always Knows'_…another one you should go read! Watch this space…   
  
Love you all, and thanks ever so (another Spike line) for your support.   
  
Anna.   
  
  
_Seagulls sea-saw   
In the sweeping air,   
Below, the houses huddle   
In the narrow yards,   
Sheltering under torn shawls   
Of grey smoke.   
Back bent and wind spent   
Folk brave the bridge,   
And everywhere is the sound   
Of the sea.   
  
from **Whitby in Winter** by Tom Stamp_


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